Schenn-Sational Night for 'Killer' and the Leafs

On a night that Doug Gilmore will remember for a long time, it was easy to lose sight of the fact that there was a game being played. Watching the ceremonial raising of Gilmores banner, brought to life a lot of great Leaf memories.

The inspiration wasn't lost on the team either as they went on to defeat the very one (or should I say two) dimensional Pittsburgh Penguins by a final score of 5-4.



The combination of Crosby and Malkin is lethal to say the least, but, beyond the two of them, the Penguins just don't have that much to offer. Having said that, it would be kind of cool to see the two of them end up #1 and #2 in scoring and the end of the season. A feat that hasn't been seen ironically enough since 1996 when Mario Lemiuex and Jaromir Jagr did it for these very same Penguins.

It was an excellent game to watch. Fast paced, lots of skill. It still amazes me sometimes to watch some of these guys and the things that they can do with the puck.

Luke Schenn was again a pleasure to watch. He has the poise and confidence of a player 10 years his senior most of the time, and will be a very big part of the leafs roster in the future. In the absense of Kaberle, Schenn logged over 23 minutes of ice time tonight was always on the ice with the dynamic duo.

Vesa Toskala however may not. There were three goal scored on him tonight, that probably shouldn't have been. Two of them were simply because of poor positional play. One however, was as a result of a blown call in my opinion. Toskala was literally pushed halfway across his goal crease by the Pittsburgh player which the afforded 'Sid the Kid' a virtually empty net.

Now, I don't typically harp on the officiating too much. However, it seems to me that there should at least be a happy medium somewhere.

Nik Antropov, after going 17 games without scoring a goal had his second in as many games, and Jason Blake added another goal and an assist to his points total tonight. In the last twenty games he has easily been the Leafs best player and has been on a point a game pace.

The Leafs next action comes Tuesday at home against the Panthers and as always, you can hear all the action live, right here on Bench Brawl!