High Scoring end to the Pre Season!

The Leafs and Sabres combined for 13 goal on route to the Leafs finishing the pre season with a record of 6 and 3

With a final score of 7-6, Coach Wilson chose to take the high road when asked about the loss.


``I think both teams were disinterested most of the night,'' said Wilson. ``It's your last exhibition game. Lord knows, we've played enough of them.''

Viktor Stalberg, the only remaining rookie on the team, scored his team, and league leading sixth goal of the pre-season. If he manages to continue that pace for most of the year, we could be looking at our first 50 goal scorer since......... hell I don't even remember. But, in case you're curious, it was Dave Andreychuk in the 93-94 season with 53 goals.

Stepniak, Blake, Kulemin and Grabovski also score for Toronoto. While Toskala, who until he allowed the first gaol to get by him at 7:03 of the second was playing pretty well, did nothing to help his cause to remain number one in the big smoke.

While one bad pre-season outing does not spell the end of the world, Leafs brass well know that the biggest failing of the team last year was not its goal production, the Leafs were a more than respectable 5th in the NHL in terms of goal scoring. But, they were last in save percentage and overall defence, and last in goals against. A trend that we're all hoping will not continue!




On Sunday, the Maple Leafs returned Nazem Kadri to the OHL's London Knights and sent young winger Christian Hanson to the AHL's Toronto Marlies. Even though Tyler Bozak was among the players headed to Huntsville, he's likely to be sent down before the team has to submit its 23-man roster on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Stalberg is about to start his rookie season in the NHL.

``He'll probably be the only one,'' said Wilson.

The Leafs open the regular season this Thursday against a Montreal Canadian team that looks as though it could be facing alot of trouble of its own this season. As always, you can hear all of the action live, right here on BenchBrawl!

Until next time, you kids play safe!

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!