Leafs fall 4-3 in OT to the Stars

After enjoying their first victory of the season against Anaheim the other night, the table was set for the star of something against Dallas, but the Stars had other ideas and the Buds would have to settle for 1 point in a 4-3 overtime loss.

The Leafs were 2nd in the NHL on the Power play coming into tonight's action, thanks mostly to a five PPG outburst against the Ducks on Monday.

Dallas would not be as obliging in regard to taking penalties, in fact, they only took 2 the whole game. For their part, the Leafs did score a power play goal on one of only 2 chances and only took 3 penalties themselves. Unfortunately, their penalty kill is as bad, as their power play is good and they allowed Dallas to score on one of their chances as well.

Nikolai Kulemin beat Dallas Goaltender Marty Turco twice for his 1st and 2nd goals of the season and showed a little grit tonight that we haven't seen yet this year. His second of the game gave the Leafs the lead more than halfway through the third but they couldn't hold on and the Stars tied it up with a little over 2 minutes left to go in regulation.


"With 5 minutes left in [regulation] and up a goal, you have to find ways to close those games out," Blake said. "It's a tough one to take, giving up a late goal, but you learn from that and move forward."

Lee Stepniak also scored tonight, and is on a mini 2 game goal streak.

My favorite Leaf Jason Blake also chipped in with 3 assist tonight to bring his point total to 6 on the season. ( I don't know why he's my favorite, he just is!)

Jonas " The Monster " Gustavsoon stopped 32 of 36 shots tonight, and was obviously upset when Dallas scored in OT to win the game. Almost halfway through the O T, with Dallas buzzing in the Leafs one, Kulemin was late in covering his man and Neal was able to put the backhand past Gustavsson for the win.

Look for the Leafs to hit the win column again on Friday as they face the Buffalo
Sabres. As always, you can hear the action live right here on Bench Brawl!

Until next time, you kids play safe!

Hagman and "The Monster" Feast on Duck!!

It brings me great pleasure to report that our Toronto Maple Leafs have won their first regulation game of the season!!


In a game that saw the return of Jonas " The Monster " Gustavsson, and Niklas Hagman score his second career hat trick, you would of thought that the Leafs would have played better hockey en route to a 6-3 win over the Anaheim Ducks!

Just kidding. Fundamentally their game was sound and they for a change were able to capitalize on the opportunities that were presented to them.

The Ducks would take 17 penalties in total on the night and were out shot 39-28 when all was said and done.

The Leafs on the other hand for the most part were poised, and disciplined for most of the night. Oddly enough, although they didn't seem to have the same intensity and speed that they showed in their previous two games against the Canucks and the Rangers, they still managed to out-play the Ducks for the better part of the night.

Gustavsson stopped 25 of the 28 shots in his return and although he looked very good on a few saves and was obviously comfortable, he was caught looking around a couple of times and his lateral movement was a little slow. All in all, a solid performance.

Niklas Hagman reminded Leafs fans tonight why he's here. He's here to score. Hagman is a proven scorer, who may never reach the 40 or 50 goal mark, but I'll take four 25 goal scorers over one fifty goal scorer any day! Tonight's Hat trick was the second of his career, Kaberle had a goal and four assists, while Stempniak contributed a goal and three assists.


Jason Blake and Alex Ponikarovski were held goal less, although Blake did get an assist. Mikeal Grabovski also scored for the Leafs, his second of the year.

Matt Stajan, who has shown great improvement over the course of the last couple of games had three assists as well, while John Michell chipped in with one.

The Leafs play their third of a five game road trip Wednesday in Dallas, and as always, you can hear all the action, live right here on Bench Brawl!

Leafs Officially Own Record with 3-1 loss to Canucks!

These ' New Look Leafs ' now officially own the record for losses to start the season, while it is a dubious record to have, the Leafs shouldn't be worried about it, after all, the still need to lose another four games to clinch the all time NHL title!

If you watched the game last night, then you're as sure as I am, that the Boys in Blue are well on their way. That was easily the best all around game they've played all year, and save for a bunch of penalty trouble in the first period, the Leafs for the most part played an extremely solid game and took the game to the Canucks for most of the night!


The Canucks first goal of their 3-1 win, was scored off the stick of Leafs d-man Komiserik. Joey MacDonald was very good in net aside from the second Vancouver goal that he simply was too far back in the net to see properly, and Luongo, despite taking a knee to the head from Toronto's Jason Blake, was incredibly lucky all night.

While there were several bright spots for the Leafs, there are still a couple of things that they need to work on.

While they obviously need to stay out of the box, they were 5 for 7 on the penalty kill. Luke Schenn needs to spend some time in the press box to re-evaluate himself. After a pretty good year last year, he has been more of a liability to the team in the early going so far this year.

Lee Stepniak looked very good last night, although, his stick couldn't seem to find the net.

Ian White set a career high in shots and even with a bad give away in the second, played his best game so far this year.

Viktor Stalberg, is still having trouble adjusting to life on the big club, he has only one point in six games as a Leaf, and is a -4, with just 15 shots over all.

Alex Edler put his hand over the puck in the blue ice and there was no call, and there where a couple of other obvious no calls in my opinion that could of made the difference, but alas, the Leafs fall to 0-7-1 on the season and will look to Anaheim Monday night for their first win of the season.

As Always, you can hear all the action live, right here on Bench Brawl!

Until next time, you kids play safe!

Leafs Lose Fourth of the Season

The Leafs have not started a season with this bad of a record since, I believe 91/92 when on November 10th of that year they were a dismal 2 and 16. Let's not have repeat of that shall we?

The Achilles heal for the Maple Leafs again so far this season is over all team defense. You can say what you want about goaltending, and Ron Wilson said something about that this morning but I'll get to that later.

But over all, the Leafs have been brutal in their own zone. It's almost like they are smearing Vaseline on their sticks before the game! Turnovers and give aways in their own zone and in the neutral zone are absolutely killing them!

They gave up 3 powerplay goals tonight against a team who, although that are the defending Stanley Cup Champions, found themselves 27th in the league on the powerplay?!? How do you give up 3 powerplay goals to a team with that kind of record?

Toskala, although he looked good at times tonight, is still playing too deep in his net, he is not a large goalie and makes himself even smaller when he plays that style.

Ron Wilson said this morning that Toskala is working hard with their new Goal tending consultant, but that you can't expect ten years of bad habits and a certain style to disappear over night. It will likely take a couple of weeks to start seeing the results.

I understand this rational , but, if the Leafs are going to make the playoffs as both Wilson and Burke eluded to before the season, the team can ill afford play like that from their number one goalie.

The Leafs lost 5 to 2 to the Penguins who last season didn't win a game against the Leafs at the ACC and dropped 3 of 4 to Toronto over all.

They'll need to be better in all areas of the game Monday, when they seek to break their goose egg in New York versus the Rangers.

The heat in particular will be on Vesa Toskala, who made 28 saves and looked uncomfortable in goal for much of the night, and received plenty of mock cheers from a disgruntled crowd of 19,374. Another focal point must be their discipline, as a few key momentum changes were given back by ill-timed penalties.


Jay Rosehill who had 9 penalty minutes in tonight's game, opened the scoring for the Leafs who had three fighting majors tonight including Colton Orr in a decidedly one sided win in the first period.

Hagman scored the only other goal for Toronto, his second of the season.



The Leafs next action come Monday night as they face the new look New York Rangers, and as always, you can hear all the action live, right here on Bench Brawl!

Until next time, you kids play safe!

Keeping you in the loop!

Here is a quick preview of tomorrow nights game.

The Toronto Maple Leafs announced Thursday morning that goaltender Joey MacDonald has joined the team on an Emergency Recall from the Toronto Marlies of the American Hockey League. Jonas Gustavsson was placed on Injured Reserve and is expected to miss at least one week with a groin injury.

Vesa Toskala will get his third start of the season. He remained relaxed in the midst of a hail storm of criticism over the start that the team has had so far.

“We got one point in the first game and lost the next two,” said the unflappable goalie Vesa Toskala. “For me, it’s only been two games. We just need to win the next one.”

Well said!

Ron Wilson said that one of the big issue's early in the pre season is the length of their shift.


" It's impossible to go full out for 55 secs to a minute, it's hard enough to just skate around in a circle for 25 to thirty. When you're out there for longer shifts, you tend to try to conserve energy and not go full out."

Stalberg left Tuesday's game with the Senators after being hit by Anton Volchenkov in the first period. And will likely be kept out of Saturdays line up as a precaution, although, don't quote me on that, it seems as though so far this year I can't be sure who's on the ice until the puck drops!

Phil Kessel, who is still out until around mid November, can't wait to get on the ice to help his new team, and John Mitchell, who in my opinion was the best Leaf in the pre-season but is struggling so far in the first three games of the regular season, remains up-beat.

“We want to give people something to write,” said Mitchell. “We want people to read about us winning two or three games in a row or having a chance for a shutout go off someone’s skate and everyone talks about that. We want to come to practice feeling good.”

The Leafs play the Stanley Cup champion Penguins on Saturday at Air Canada Centre, who are so far 3-1 this season, but have given up as many as they've score.

“They will be a very good test, no question” said Mitchell. “We have to work hard and we have to work smart.”

My son ( six years old ) is a Penguins fan, it will break his poor little heart when my beloved Leafs get their first win of the season against his team, he'll get over it!

Don't forget to check out my live blog tomorrow night, I go live at 7pm est, stop by and say hi!

Until next time, you kids play safe!

Exciting News!!!!

While I am always looking for things to make this blog a little better, I sometime take a while. Here is one of those exciting new things that I eluded to at the beginning of the season. Live Blogging!!! That's right, beginning this Saturday October third during the Toronto v Washington game, I will be hosting my very first Live Blog!

So now, not only can you listen to the game live from Bench Brawl, but you can interact with me and lots of other fans too!!

See you Saturday!

Relax Kids, it's just One Game!

Holy cow, the boo birds are out, ' Tank Nation ' is rearing it's ugly head and the rest of the Leaf's fans are calling for Toskala's head and for the rest of the team to be sent down to the Marlies! And don't even get me started about the media!

Ok, so the Leafs lost the first game of the season 4-3 in overtime to a Montreal Canadian team who, for all intents and purposes, could really go either way this year, greatly depending on the play of their obviously bi-polar goaltender, Carey Price.


First, let's deal with Toskala. If you've been reading me for awhile, you know by know that I neither like, nor dis-like the man. I refuse to throw him under a bus because he let in one bad goal. Un-timely though it may have been, it was one bad goal. For the most part, what I've seen of him since the beginning of this camp to now, the first game of the year. He has looked better than he did last year. His lateral movement is better and faster, he challenges shooters more rather than standing on his goal line and hoping the puck hits him somewhere. As un timely as the bad goal was, it wasn't the end of the world.



I am not however a big fan of Rickard Wallin as of yet. He did nothing in the pre-season of note, and he was little more than a ghost tonight. I know I'm sort of beating a dead horse here, and I understand, and agree with the wisdom in sending Kadri back down, but if it was a choice between the two? Wallin is still, at 29 years of age, a relatively un-proven player in the NHL. Looking at his numbers though, he does have some up-side. But, alas, after ten years as a pro, he has yet to reach the 20 games played in the NHL plateau. Curious.

Anyway, enough of all that, there were some positives to take away from tonight's game. They out shot the Habs by a 46-27 margin, and were six for eight on the penalty kill. The flip side of those two positive though, is Price stood on his head, and the Leafs have got to be better on the PK, if they are going to continue to exert themselves on their opponents. It's ok to take eight penalties a night if you can kill at least seven of them.

``I think we were the better team tonight, and fell short,'' said Komisarek. ``We didn't get two points. Next time, we find a way to win and get the two points.

``Good start, could have been better, but we'll take the point and take the positive out of it.''

The Leafs are looking good, and I can't wait to see them in action Saturday night in Washington, as always, you can hear all of the action, live, right here on Bench Brawl!

Until next time, you kids play safe!