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!

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!