NHL, 2006-2007 season

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The Battle of Ontario looks to be heating up again. The Senators are upset over Darcy Tucker fighting Patrick Eaves. The Leafs aren't happy with the 6-2 final score. I can't wait for Thursday night's game...

 

Crosby and Malkin are looking good together eh?

Chicago has a bad habit of losing star players to long injuries. They look awful.

I can't believe Minnesota is doing so damn well.

 

@ Blog :

Lol, yeah, no kidding. When I saw that Havlat, Handzus *and* Khabibulin were out, I couldn't contain my laghter.. lol That's juste waaayy to much bad luck at one place. But it will be interesting to see what happens. The Sabres were able to pull off a series win without four regular Ds.. But Tallon said he was making calls all week. Woulnd't be surprise that he annouced monday or tuesday that he traded a young player against an established veteran..

@ Gnarf :

Who cares who wins the Battle of Ontario in regular season. The Sens will still be beaten in the playoffs by the Leafs anyway...

 

I'd bet that Paul Holmgren would love to move an experienced defenceman out of Philly for a youn player, but that won't solve Chicago's woes...

AS for the Battle of Ontario, I know the Leafs win in the playoffs, but a 7-2 loss is still embarrassing. at least the Leafs always kick it up against the Montreal Canadians. Even if they lose in OT or a Shootout, it will still help snap them out of the funk they seem to be in...

 

At this point I don't really care that the Leafs have beaten Ottawa in the playoffs in years past - I am more concerned that their truly pathetic effort is a sign of things to come. They looked well and truly outclassed out there both nights.

McCabe seems like he is campaigning for the title of the most overpaid player in the NHL and I have got to say that he would have my vote. His defensive work in the two games against Ottawa was truly bad even by his already low standards.

 

I expected the Leafs to struggle early on while they adjusted to the new guys (almost 50% turnover) and the new system under Paul Maurice. Once they got used to each other and the system in place, they should put up points at a much better clip. If they average a point a game until then, they can make a late push to get in the playoffs. I think ultimately they do get in...

 

As a Leafs fan, I am not that happy right now. I'm really not impressed with Raycroft. I mean honestly, I was perfectly fine with giving Tellqvist the start. So what if he sucked it for those two games last year against Montreal towards the end of the season? He was very solid for the rest of the time. But whatever, as long as Buffalo doesn't break the Leafs old record, I'm happy.

 

Maybe the Leafs will have a chance if they can trade McCabe for a bag of pucks. I heard today that he is second in the NHL in giveaways. Given what I have seen so far this year the only thing that surprises me about that is that there is actually someone else who has more giveaways than he does. The Leafs sure could have used that 7 Million in salary cap space to sign some real players.

 

Well McCabe was their best defenseman last year. They were counting on more constance with him. Still, I wouldn't drop the towell just yet...

And trouble is brewing in Montréal. The Kovalev- Samsonov-Plekanec line wasn't working at all since the start of the season. So the coach decided to put Samsonov on the third line last game, and he said he was going to do so again to night. Samsonov is really angry and said if this continued, he would ask for a trade... My view on the matter : There's a freakin' reason he put him on the third line. Samsonov is playing poior hockey. Instead of crying like a baby, he should be trying to better his game...

 

reepnorp: I agree with you. I was surprised they coughed up Tuuka Rask for Raycroft with Aubin and Tellqvist as a workable tandem. They could have helt Rask until they needed to trade for an impact player up front or a replacement defenceman when Kubina went down.

JSBB: McCabe needs to get open and shoot. Other teams know this, so that make that harder than ever and make sure the Goalies can see the shot. As long as the rest of the power play isn't getting results, McCabe will get too much attention from the penalty killers, and his point totals will suck. I was encouraged to see Kaberle get a Hat trick (and surprised that he got more than three shots that game too!). Maybe that will draw some of the attention from defenders away from McCabe, so he can get some shots in too.

Triactus: Samsonov did respond as Carbeneau wanted him to, and for the second and third period was re-united with Kovalev.

Back to the Leafs. Tonight they blew another third period lead, which leads me to believe that Paul Maurice is leaning too heavily on his top players (Tucker, Sundin, Kaberle, McCabe), and not using the younger guys. Bates Battaglia has 3 goals and only plays about 8 minutes a night. John Pohl is also a gifted scorer. They could easily contribute 10 to 12 minutes so that Sundin can be more effective for the time he is on the ice. Also, Nik Antropov is back. Antropov led the team in +/- last season, so the team defence should see some improvement. Rumour has it that kubina will try to start skating in 5 days. He can't come back soon enough for the Leafs D. Part of their problem is that Wade Belak or Jay Harrison are not equivalent to Kubina...

 

Yeah, that's good that Samsonov responded. Proves he got some maturity in him. But part of the reason of his success was the line Carbonneau formed, uniting the three russians (Samsonov, Kovalev and Perezhogin), with Kovalev in center. The latter said after the game that he felt confterble there, so he might be a better solution than Plekanec at center.

And it seems like Yannick Perrault is close to signing with Pheonix. That's a thing I always didn't get. Montréal treated this player like dirt. Yet, he is one the league's best on face-offs and he has a very good shot (he finished last year with 22 goals and 57 pts in 69 games with Nashville). More so, he has a lot of class and respect for authority. He never complains about his ice time. Yet, Montréal gave him the foot in the arse. One of the very many bad moves of the habs. Specially since THEY NEED A CENTER!

 

It's a long week for the Leafs, Atlanta Monday, Tampa and Florida Wednesday and Thrusday, then Buffalo on Saturday night. All four games on the road...

 

Honestly, if the Leafs put the effort in, I don't see why they can't win two of the three games left this week. I could even see them beating Buffalo, I mean now that they've had a reality check, they're probably a bit more humble. So long as Belak's time is minimized, they should do fine.

 

They did beat Atlanta tonight, and the power play went 3 for 7. Kaberle kept his hot streak alive, and McCabe got a point, Sundin got three assists. Raycroft looked good too. I think they beat Tampa and Florida this week. They may even go to the shootout with the Sabres...

 

Just out of curiosity, do you think that O'Neill performs as he should, or is he slacking off again?

 

Leafs should have kept Steve Sullivan. Then he wouldn't have scored the game winner against the Canucks tonight!!! Argh.. i was hoping it'd go to a shootout with about 5 min left in the 3rd period to showcase the offensive skills of Nashville's forwards.

 

@ Triactus - let me put it this way, if you played a drinking game where you had to take a drink everytime the play by play guys mentioned O'Neill when describing the play you would not only be stone cold sober by the end of the game but you probably also have a parched throat. The man has been virtually invisible out there for pretty much every Leaf game I have watched this season.

 

@ JSBB : lol, I see. It's a shame. He was a big time player when he was playing for the Hurricanes..

Woo! Another win by the habs against the Sens last night. And another great game by Aebischer. Seems like Montréal will be plagues by the question : Who is the number 1 goalie? After years of that with Théodore and Hackett, Huet and Aebischer seem to be at equal footing for the spot... To be continued...

 

Hmm, amusingly if you had played the O'Neill drinking game last night you might have actually ended up a bit tipsy by the end of the game. He ended up with a pair of assists and a fair number of shots on net.

Kaberle continues to be on a scoring streak. Amusingly, before the empty net goal, the Leafs defense had scored 7 of their last 10 goals - with Kaberle counting for five of those.

The goat horns had to belong to Brendan Bell though - at one point he managed to give the puck away three times on one shift. Later on he was out on a powerplay and took a shot that missed the net by such a wide margin that I was just stunned. He was completely in the clear with plenty of time and he couldn't manage to get the puck even remotely close to the net.

Edit: Sigh, tonights game is on Leafs TV so I can't watch it. Oh well, judging by the score it can't be too pretty. Florida is currently up 3-1 with Macabe scoring the Leafs lone goal - with the assist from Kaberle. At this rate Kaberle will be taking over the Leaf team scoring lead in no time.

Edit2: Ooh, the Leafs scored again so it is a one goal game. Sundin assisted by Kaberle. Kaberle just keeps racking up those points.

Edit3: Oh well, Florida added an empty netter and we can add another loss to the Leafs record book.

[ November 03, 2006, 04:22: Message edited by: JSBB ]

 

Man, I hate Belfour sometimes. Figures one of his three wins of the season comes against the Leafs. How can the Leafs let themselves beat three good teams, and then lose to one like Florida? It just doesn't make sense. Now here's hoping the Leafs can stand up to Buffalo. I mean we did beat the only team to beat them, so by an extension of that, we should be able to beat Buffalo, right? Right?!