Saturday, February 14, 2009

Leafs Crush Pens 6-2 at Home


After Toskala shook off the cow webs in the first period, he was letter perfect from then on in. Stopping the next 25 shots he faced on route to a 6-2 victory at home against the Pittsburgh Penguins.The Maple Leafs entered the game as one of the NHL’s worst teams on home ice and were returning from a miserable road trip. On top of that, Pittsburgh scored two goals on its first three shots and had the home fans booing goalie Vesa Toskala.

Jason Blake, and Nik Antropov both continued their respective scoring paces, with Blake scoring 2 and Antropov netting a goal and dding 2 helpers. Stajan, Mitchell, and Ponikarovski also scoredfor the Leafs.



After being down 2-0 going into the second frame, despite out playing and out shooting the Penguins, it looked like we were going to see much of the same from a Leafs squad that we have come to expect to lose.

The winner was Blake’s 21st of the season and will be shown on a few highlight reels. He spun and brought the puck from his backhand to his forehand before sliding it behind Marc-Andre Fleury.

“I thought we did a great job in the second period,” Blake said. “We got pucks deep, we had our skating legs, we forechecked well, we had a lot of shots on net. Overall, I thought it was a great team effort and Vesa played great.

On this night however, the Buds never once let up, Toskala made some key save at key time, Dominic Moore was easily one of the best players on the ice for both teams and all 4 lines were defending well and keeping the Penquins hemmed in in their own zone for much of the contest.

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