Toronto Maple Leafs Defeat Referees to Win Fourth Straight

The Toronto Maple Leafs have won their fourth game in a row, and fifth of six.

The Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Edmonton Oilers for the second time this season on Thursday night in Edmonton.  According to the TSN broadcast, the Leafs became the first team every to win three straight road games in Alberta on a single trip.  I suspect, however, that not many teams have ever played three straight road games in Alberta, so I doubt that is too much of an accomplishment.

Still, the Oilers were probably considered the Leafs biggest threat coming into the season and they’ve now defeated them twice, and could easily be a perfect three and oh, if not for another game of absolutely terrible officiating.

The NHL should be embarrassed about this game – not because there were so many calls, but because there is no consistency and no one knows what is or is not a penalty anymore.  I am certain that the refs are not biased, but some of those penalties against the Leafs (Nylander’s, two of Kerfoot’s) were preposterous. (All stats naturalstattrick.com).

Despite the fact that the NHL almost always calls even-up penalties, the Leafs were given four minors in a row as the refs seemed to want to keep the Oilers in the game!  The final tally was 14 PIMS for the Leafs, eight for the Oilers.

Still, no point in complaining as a win is a win.

Toronto Maple Leafs vs Oilers

Congrats are in order to Wayne Simmonds who scored his third of the season, which is great news. I don’t expect much from Simmonds at this point in his career, but anything he does is like found money since he’s a pretty nice guy to have in a depth role.

Same goes for Bogosian who seems to be better after a rough start to the season. I still don’t think the Leafs should play him over Lehtonen or Sandin, but there is no doubt his last few games were better than the first few.

Overall this wasn’t really the Leafs best game, but it’s hard to judge when a full 20 minutes + were spent with one team or the other on special teams. That’s right, less than 66% of tonight’s game was played 5v5, which is a bit nuts.

Holl and Muzzin especially had their lunch handed to them 5v5, but the Oilers are a hard team to play when your job is to shutdown two of the world’s best players.  Other than that, I guess Nylander was alright, I didn’t really think anyone stood out all that much, other than Freddie Andersen who pretty much won this game on his own.

My only concern at this point is that the Leafs don’t let their record go to their head, as they have not really played in a style that deserves a 7-2 record.  Still in first place though!