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 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!