The "Monster" Shines Again!

Oh, I can just hear all the hockey experts this morning....." Toskala finished as #1 Goalie in Toronto", "Gustavsson gets standing Ovation", "Plan the parade route...."

Blah Blah Blah.


While Gustavsson did look goo in his second appearance, and did make a great save on a 2 on 0, he has only played sixty minutes of pre-season hockey, and faced a total of 22 shots.

I was watching some sports shows this morning just to try to gauge peoples reactions and the media is just nuts. People were pulling numbers out of thin air. My personal favorite though had to be from Rogers Sportsnet where they show a pic of Gustavsson and beside his pic, they had his stats. Now, it wasn't presented like it was his all time stats, it was literally presented as though he was the greatest goal tender of ALL TIME. Aaaaaand had a goals against average of ZERO, and .1000 save percentage!

Geeez people!

Don't get me wrong, I'm as excited as the next guy to have potentially the greatest goalie in NHL history playing for the Leafs, but please, let's not canonize him quite yet, ok?

Ok, there was a game somewhere right? That's right, The Leafs did in fact play their eighth game of the pre-season last night, and the ' Monster ' did in fact help them on there way to a 2-1 victory over the Detroit Red Wings to improve their record to 6-2 in the pre season!


``It was awesome,'' said Gustavsson, the game's first star. ``It was so fun to play today.''




Viktor Stalberg hit the scoresheet again and potted his team leading 5th goal of the pre-season.

``I think I've shown over the last couple weeks here that I'm ready to play,'' said Stalberg. ``Hopefully, I get a chance here coming Thursday.''

There was a scary moment in the second period for Ponikarovsy. As he was skating up ice, he took a high stick from Detroit's Jason Williams. The gash left a pool of blood on the ice and required several stitches, but did not keep him from returning to play in the third period.

The Leafs final pre season game go's tonight against the Buffalo Sabre's, and as always, you can hear all the action live, right here on BenchBrawl!

Until next time, you kids play safe!