So I was wrong from what I said. I stated that Kovalchuk would get 3 pts. last night, but he ended up getting 1 goal and being a -2. Something that I noticed the Thrashers did good of was not take very many penalties while having the worst penalty-killing unit in the league. The Leafs only had 1 power-play the whole game, and did not take advantage of it.
The Leafs came out great on all cylinders in last nights game, and never gave away any great chances. Any great chances by Atlanta resulted in a blocked shot or a timely save by VeTo. The one goal on Kovalchuk was a weak goal which Toskala should've had, but it is possible that White's stick deflected it or messed up Toskala's view. Some things that the Leafs altered to win this game were the strong points of the win. The Leafs had recovery of almost all of the offensive AND defensive rebounds. On the powerplay or great chances with lots of cycling they had two men in front of the net for deflections and rebounds, and every Leafs rush was the result of bad transition mistakes by Atlanta.
I'm not sure if Wellwood is the best player at dangling on the Leafs....Oh wait, he is. On Steen's goal, him and Wellwood went into the Atlanta zone, Steen wide open, Wellwood makes his way past two guys, and then a strong tape-to-tape drop pass to Steen who was awaiting with his stick in the air. Steen sniped it top shelf, right where the peanut butter goes!
Random Game Notes:
- The line of Steen-Stajan-Devereaux seems to becoming increasingly better every game. Last night, both Steen and Stajan ended long overdue goal droughts.
- After a four game losing skid, the Leafs will take any kind of goals, including the Wozniewski goal off the glass, off the top of the net, off Hedberg and in. There was speculation that Antropov batted it in from above but the review found he did not even touch it.
- Belak's fight against Boulton was amazing. Finally a fight from the Leafs where our team didn't get annihilated. Belak put up a great fight and arguably won with the bombs he was throwing in the early part of the fight.
- Vesa Toskala (VeTo) came out with another strong night for the Leafs, allowing just 2 goals on 20 shots. Maybe we could see our league-worst GA slow down a bit with some solid play from Toskala going into December.
Shine of Hope:
Well, the title pretty much says itself, the Leafs cold November is over. In November, the Leafs went 4-6-4, or as Mr. Bone would say, 4-10. That's balls, and it's unacceptable. The Leafs really need to turn things around come December, and hopefully become a .500 team or better. Saturday's game against the Penguins will be the first game of December. Poni is expected back in the lineup, and expect VeTo to start again, as he has clearly taken over the number one job in T.O.
You stay classy, Leafs Nation.
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