And the first round goes to....

The Leafs suffered their third loss in row to start the season losing 2-1 to the Ottawa Senators.

On a night that the Leafs honored former All Star and all around great player Gary Roberts, the stage seemed to be set for Toronto's first victory of the season.

Although the shots on goal would indicate that it was a fairly evenly played game, one would think that the edge would probably have to go to a Leaf team hungry for their first win of the season. The Buds certainly had their share of chances in this one, including a shot by Komisarek in the third period that rang off the inside of both posts behind Ottawa goalie Pascal Leclaire. Coach Ron Wilson was extremely critical of his forwards after the game and promised to put everyone through a tough practice on Wednesday morning - telling reporters to ``come early.''

``We'll find most of our forwards tomorrow,'' said Wilson. ``That was almost an embarrassing effort from seven or eight guys who we're really counting on heavily.''

Matt Stajan netted his third goal in as many games but the team came up short after a second period in which there was a blown call ( in my opinion ) on the first Ottawa goal that appeared to have been knocked in with a high stick, and wonder of all wonders, a call by referee Carey Fraser that cost the Leafs the hockey game.......

About a minute after the opening Ottawa goal, young Luke Schenn took Ottawa's Michalek to the ice while he was on a breakaway. Fraser instantly and emphatically awarded the Senators a penalty shot. Now, I can't argue with that call, it was a good call. However, the Ottawa player was also injured on the same play, as a result of a high stick that he received from Schenn. Now, I'm willing to bet, and I can say this because nobody pays me to write this blog, when Michalek got to the bench, and the Ottawa coach saw that he was cut, he was sent to the dressing room for repairs...... enthusiastically!

Et Voila! Alfredsson is going to take the penalty shot. Now, Gustavsson, to his credit stayed with the veteran pretty well.... right until he just belly flopped onto the ice and Alfredsson put a nifty little backhand up over his right leg.

``Maybe I'll be able to get him once,'' Alfredsson said with a smile. ``I'm sure he'll be better prepared next time.''

Gustavsson never saw the deke coming.

``It was good penalty shot from him,'' he said. ``I thought he was going to shoot, but he fooled me there.''


Things are slowly getting better in Leaf Land, the Buds again for the second game in a row kept the penalties to a minimum, Gustavsson in his debut played a solid game stopping 26 of 28 shots, and for the most part, the Leafs played a better defensive game. If they could only figure out how to be equally effective at BOTH ends of the ice!

Conspicuous by his absence was young gun Stalberg who only clocked a little over 5 minutes and was not on the bench after a hard hit by Volchenkov at the end of the first period. No update yet.

The Leafs play host to Pittsburgh Saturday aaaaaaaand we will be hosting our second live blog here at Bench Brawl! So please be sure to pop by and check us out!

The site also has a couple of new features that you may want to check out. I recently links to this seasons Box Scores and to this seasons Video Highlights, so you won't have to worry about missing anything! I also added a link to the Toronto Marlies home page so you can keep up to date with all you favorite junior players, and future Maple Leafs!

Until next time, you kids play safe!