Rick Di Pietro returned to the goal just over two months after meniscus surgery and stopped 28 shots. Guerin became the 79th NHL player, and the eighth U.S.-born player, to score 400 goals. He also is the third player to accomplish the feat in an Islanders uniform.
"It means a lot," Guerin said. "It means I've been able to stick around this league for quite some time, and had some success at doing it. (Tonight's) goals came at a good time. Everyone kept a good attitude and a good work ethic (during the losing streak)."
Maple Leafs coach Ron Wilson praised Guerin.

"That's a tremendous milestone," Wilson said. "I know Billy, and he's a great guy and very deserving.

"New York was 0-9-1 since its last victory Nov. 29.Lee Stepniak scored for Toronto, and Toskala stopped 27 shots. The Maple Leafs have lost two straight after winning five of six.
DiPietro got involved early in the contest. He stopped the first two shots he saw, and then threw a pass up the right wall for Okposo, who skated into the Toronto zone and fired a sharp angle shot that hit Toskala and deflected in at 3:47 "It hit the inside edge of my blocker," Toskala said. "Some nights, it happens."

Toronto forward Matt Stajan was not happy about any aspect of the game.
"I don't think we played good in tonight's game," Stajan said. "We were sloppy and turned the puck over. We didn't come out the way we wanted. It hurts us as a team that we know we let this one get away."

Here is a challenge for all you Brawlers out there. Josh Baily recorded an assist on Billy Guerins first goal last night. He's an Ontario boy. I, would like to know, how dangerous Ontario born players have been to the Buds over the years. In the past two games alone Home grown talent has scored over 6 points alone.

Good news and bad!

Happy Holidays everyone, and thanks for making BenchBrawl so popular!!

I have to apologize, The switched my shift at work over the holidays and I have been a little less than diligent in my posting, as my good friend Brian pointed out today.

Ok, here goes. On Monday, the Leafs followed up a major rout of the Penguins, with a second consecutive win over the Atlanta Thrashers. This 6-2 victory, highlight the NHL debut of Leaf net minder Justin Pogge. Pogge was drafted 4 years ago by the buds 90th over all and made 19 of 21 saves to help his team to a second win in a row.

"It was nice to see Justin play as well as he did," Toronto coach Ron Wilson said. "When he is in a butterfly, all he has to do is move two or three inches. We played really in well in front of him, but he made three or four saves that would have given (Atlanta) lots of momentum."


The following night with the Dallas Stars in town however, it was a different Toronto squad that showed up to play Mike Modano and his squad. The Leafs were embarrassed 8-2 at home.

''We didn't have our legs, we didn't have our mind to be able to play a shutdown game,'' said coach Ron Wilson. ''Unfortunately, it got ugly.''

Ugly hardly describes the effort that the Leafs seemed to be lacking for 58 of 60 minutes this night. Already painfully aware that Toskala was nursing a sore groin, perhaps the Leafs bench boss made a error in judgement by letting him start rather than resting him un til after Christmas. Pogge was in town fresh off his first NHL appearance and more to the point, had to stay in town until the 27th when the holiday roster freeze is over. Perhaps the Leafs would have lost no matter who was in goal, that does not however excuse a very poor decision, in my humble opinion, on the part of Ron Wilson.