Ka- BOOOM!!!!

That's the sound of the Leaf game blowing up a game they had in the palm of their hands. Also goes by the term of munsoning or munsoned.

Within the last two minutes of the game, the Leafs exploded BIG TIME. Giving up two quick goals after having a near perfect game. Then, Carolina's momentum carried over to overtime and they finished us off on a two-man advantage to win the game 3-2. A two man disadvantage for the Leafs in OVERTIME? Unacceptable. The refs seemed to be having some fun out there, calling two penalties on the Leafs in overtime, which usually doesn't happen. Both calls, tripping on Poni, and hooking on Antropov, were usual everyday calls, but it doesn't seem quite fair when the Hurricanes committed two of the same kind of plays in overtime as well.

The TSN turning point for the worse for the Leafs, was when there was half a minute left in overtime, Poni crossing the blue line with Antropov with the wide open net. Cory Stillman takes the puck off Poni, takes it down the ice, and the rest is history. Jesus christ Poni, the least you could do was take a shot at the net, even if it is of Hal Gill calibre, or even dump it in the corner. There is only 30 seconds left!!

The Leafs clearly dominated the ice for a full 58 minutes, getting up 2-0 with goals from the help of Devereaux and Kaberle. Im sure the Leafs wish they could take back those last two minutes.

Goaltending:

- Vesa Toskala had a shutout for 58.5 minutes, shutting down the 'Canes stellar offensive strengths, always being square to the shot, and deflecting the puck to the Leafs players.

- Yet again the Leafs faced a backup goalie, this time possibly one of the worst goalies in the league. John Grahame is 3-4-1 this year with a 3.91 GAA and .869 SV%. Far below average, and the Leafs made him look like a #1 goalie.

Game Notes:

- The Leafs played a great defensive game again, with the whole squad stepping up with the absence of McCabe. Kubina replaced Caber's minutes by playing 32+ minutes, along with Gill and White playing larger roles.

- Rod Brind'Amour missed tonights game, and Carolina still found a way to embarass the Leafs. The Leafs went 28/53 on the faceoff dot, not incredible, but it would've gone the other way if Rod had played, as well as the better part of the game.

- Ponikarovsky should be demoted ice time and giving a stern talking to about that game. For onezies, he should have cleared the puck late in the 3rd period and I'd be writing about good things right now. For twozies, he took an idiotic, meathead penalty in overtime right in front of the ref, and pretty much tackled the Carolina player. What do you think Poni? Those aren't new rules, that's a routine penalty.

- Kubina stepped his game up to the big man on the 1st line, as well as 1st powerplay unit, with Kaberle, and made us forget that we were even missing McCabe.

- The Leafs need to do a better job of recovering offensive rebounds, especially when facing a goalie like John Grahame. Many shots on Grahame were juicy rebounds, and the Leafs were unable to capitalize on their opportunities.

All around a very good game by the Leafs, but a once-a-year blow up caused the Leafs to lose the game in disgusting fashion, leaving everybody angered with the sloppy last 2 minutes + overtime, but looking back at the game as a whole, they came out strong.

Next up, the Leafs head into Tampa Bay on Thursday to play Vinny Lecavalier and the Lightning. Toskala and the defenseman will have to step up the play yet again to stop their big 3, and maybe after the game we will get another crazy comment from 'Anonymous'.