Leafs/Stars Preview Nov 25th 2011

Leafs are in Dallas tonight, and unless you have been living under a rock the last 48 hours, you would have heard already that Reimer is back practicing with the team.  They had an early practice yesterday and then jumped on a bus and went to the Cowboys game.  Which the Cowboys won 20-19 on a field goal with 3 seconds left. 

The Leafs find them selves almost instantly hot again, going 2-1 in their last 3 games outscoring their opponents 16-5 in those games.  Two convincing wins, over Tbay and Washington, has the Leafs bandwagon bulging out at the sides again.

Leafs are 12-8-2 with 26 points good for 2nd in the North-East Division
Stars are 13-8-0 with 26 points good for 2nd in the Pacific Division

Gustavsson will get the start tonight. In his last 5 appearances he has 2.48 GAA and a .920 save%.   Gustavsson also is 1-0-1 in his career vs Dallas, with a 2.44 GAA and a .914 save%

Also, in a press release today, it has been announced that The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan is not selling it's 79% stake in MLSE.  Probably so they don't miss out on the playoff revenue this year when the Leafs make it.

I think tonight, the Leafs win 4-2.  Kessel, Lupul, Steckel, Connolly.

Check out some Leafs stats here: Leafs Stats

Random Stats

 I was bored at school today so I thought I would check into some stats for you guys.  Check them out!

• Last season the Leafs were at 19 points through 22 games (8-10-3)
• This season they are at 26 points through 22 games (12-8-2)
• They didnt get their 12th win until Dec 14 last year. 
  Leafs are on pace for 96 points this season, which would be their highest total since 03-04 when they set a franchise record for most points in an 82 game season.
• Wilson's record as the Leafs coach 113w 115l 40otl.
• Formula for the next three goalie stats is (minutes played)/(60) to get games played.  Then (goals for)/(games played) to give you goals per game.

• Leafs score 3.17 goals per game for Reimer (based on minutes played) over the last 40 games.
• Leafs score 2.83 goals per game for Gustavsson (based on minutes played) over the last 30 games.
• Leafs score 2.12 goals per game for Scrivens (based on minutes played) over his  7 game career.

• Kessel didnt get his 16th goal until Jan 6 and 30th point until Jan 10th.
• Kessel is on pace for: 59g 52a 111p, passing both his career highs of 36g, 32a, and 64p.
• Only once in Kessel's 5 full seasons in the NHL has he finished with more assists than goals. 

• Lupul took 40 games last year to get his 26th point of the season, he already has 26 points through 22 games this year.
  
• Lupul is on pace for: 41g 55a 96p beating his careers highs of 28g, 26a, and 53points

Leafs/Lightning Preview Nov 22nd 2011

It's turning out to be a dog fight for the division..  The Leafs are now fighting Buffalo and Boston for top spot in the North-East.  It's the Leafs own doing.  They have 4 wins in their last 10, and 4 of their 8 losses are against division rivals. 

So, last year, the Leafs were 0-3-1 against Tampa, being shut out twice in those 4 games by Roloson and Ellis once each.   Kessel has 13 points against Tampa in the 19 games that he has played against them.

Leafs are 2-6 in their last 8 and Tampa  4-4 in their last 8.

Leafs: 11-8-2 good for 1st in the North-East division (tied)
Lightning: 9-8-2 good for 3rd in the South-East

Looks like Lupul has a point per game pace for his last 34 games.  I dont think Lupul gets enough credit.  Since he came to the Leafs, Kessel has become more consistent.  In fact, since Lupul came over, Kessel has only been held off the scoreboard in consecutive games once!  His average point streak runs about 3.5 games, and his longest is 15 games (spread over the end of last year and beginning of this year).

Prediction:  Leafs 4-1 - Kessel, Frattin, Steckel, Phanuef

Leafs have to go with Gustavsson tonight, he deserves it the most.

Leafs/Canes Preview Nov 20th 2011

What a win last night for the Leafs!  7-1 over the High Scoring Capitals!  I think all the Gustavsson haters can sit down and shut up for a few weeks now.  It's another game to add to his well played list, and when you compare his well played games to Scrivens well played games, Gustavsson comes out on top.  The Monster has beaten New York Rangers, Pittsburgh Penguins, and now the Washington Capitals.  Scrivens has only beat the Columbus Blue Jackets, and the St Louis Blues.  At the time, both teams were not in the playoffs.  Gustavsson deserves to start tonight, but we will see who Wilson goes with.  Since Gus hasnt played much lately, he should be plenty rested for tonight's game in Raleigh, NC.



Leafs:11-7-2 good for 24 points and 2nd in the North-East Division
Canes:6-11-3 good for 15 points and 5th in the South-East Division

Leafs are 2-2-1 in their last 5 and the Canes are 1-4-0 in their last 5.

Kessel and Lupul lead the way for the leafs with 27 points and 24 points respectively.



Its been a while since the Leafs had 2 players high up in the scoring race.  Infact, Henny tells us that its been since the 32-33 season that they had two players in the top 2 in scoring.  Kessel sits 1st Lupul sits tied for 3rd.








Tonight the Leafs can take over the Division lead again if they beat the Canes.  Connolly got his 400th and 401st career points last night, congratulations goes out to him.

The Canes have 5 ex-Leafs on their roster.  Tim Brent, Alexei Ponikarovski, Thomas Kaberle, Jiri Tlusty and Jay Harrison.  They have a combine points total of 25.
The Leafs need to beat this team good tonight.  They need to beat them by 2 or 3 goals and put it away early.  The Leafs can not afford to lose this game.  Every game now for the rest of the season is a must win game.  Tonight, Leafs win 4-1 - Kessel 2 - Lupul - Frattin.

Leafs/Caps Preview Nov 19th 2011

Leafs face the Washington Capitals tonight in Toronto at the ACC.  The Leafs and the Caps are both coming off losses, and are only separated in the standings by 1 point (Leafs 22, Caps 21).

Washington: 10-6-1 21 points, good for 1st in the South-East division
Leafs: 10-7-2 - 22 points, good for 2nd in the North-East division

Both Toronto and Washing are struggling, winning only 1 game in both their last 6 games.  For the Leafs, its only the Kessel/Lupul line that has been producing.  They need to have more production from their 2nd and 3rd lines.
The Leafs are missing Komisarek, Lombardi, MacArthur, Grabovski, Reimer, and Armstrong.  If the Leafs want to win this game they are going to have to shut down Ovechkin right from the start.  The kid has 23G and 16A in 23 games played verses the Leafs.

Looks like Gustavsson Gets the start tonight and rightly so.

My prediction is the Leafs win this game 5-4 Kessel 2, Kulemin, Steckel, Connolly. (0-1 is my record)

Connolly is looking for his 400th career point.  He is currently at 399.
This game can be seen on CBC or streamed live from http://www.cbc.ca/sports/

Leafs/Preds Nov 17 2011

The Leafs are in Nashville tonight taking on the Predators.

Leafs: 10-6-2  for 2nd in the North-East
Preds: 9-6-3 for 2nd in the Central

Leafs have won 1 of their last 5 games and the Preds have won 4 of their last 6 games.

In order for the Leafs to win this game they need to get secondary scoring and great goal tending. Last time they faced off, the Leafs came back from a 4-1 deficit to win the game 5-4 on goals from Versteeg (2) Grabovski, Kulemin, and Luke Schenn.

My prediction is Leafs over Preds 4-2 Kessel (2) Lupul, Gardiner.

Also, a report has surfaced that Jake Gardiner might be playing the role of a forward tonight.  I don't understand why they never did that with Kaberle.

Behind Enemy Lines!

I went to Sunday night's Leafs/Sens game in Ottawa and man, did I ever feel like the enemy.   We purchased our tickets from Capital tickets, the official ticket outlet for the Ottawa Senators.  These tickets were located in section 215 which is behind the visitor’s net for 2 periods.  They were fairly good seats and fairly cheap compared to tickets at the Air Canada Center.  Mind you, I am treated much better at the ACC than I was at the Scotia Bank Place this weekend. 

We already have a huge target on our selves because we are wearing Leafs jerseys and Jessie had her face painted, with the numbers of her current two favourite Leafs players, Phaneuf and Lupul.  I had my usual blue and white Maple Leafs clown wig on.  We also carried with us our fan made sign that read "Phil that net Kessel". (hah get it, “Phil” like “Fill” I crack myself up sometimes.)

I was surprised that the 1st person I seen on Sunday happened to be a Leafs fan from Thunder Bay.  Mind you, he was crazy, and he might have been high on drugs.  He told us how he was going to the game and that he was suppose to take his grandson, but his grandson was being punished for being caught smoking weed, and was not allowed to go to the game. 

We were on our way out of the hotel, when in the main lobby, someone shouted "You are in the wrong city, you must have taken the wrong exit off that highway".  I shouted back that the Sens would have to score 1^st to take the crowd out of the game tonight.  The guy snickered and that was the end of that.

Jessie in the Senate Club toasting to our fun adventure

Then we were on our way to the game.  We had reservations at the Senate club located underground in the Scotia Bank Place.  This is a buffet style restaurant and the food was fairly good.  After dodging the odd comment and strange looks, we finished eating and paid our bill.    At this point, the excitement hasn’t kicked in yet.   

My friend Kendra and her girlfriend Dani ended up getting tickets to the game, and we met up with them in the 200 level.  We made our way to our seats and figured we had got pretty good seats.   Once I walked out to the seats, the excitement kicked in.  This was the 5^th time I have been to a Leafs/Sens game.  The 1^st one I ever went to, was in Toronto and was game 2 of the 1^st round in the 2003-2004 playoffs.  The Leafs won that game 2-0, Belfour getting the shutout.  After that the Leafs haven’t had much luck with the Sens in games that I had been in attendance, losing 3-2 in the 1^st ever shootout , 7-2 and 8-0.  I was hoping the curse would be broken Sunday night.

View from our seats

We were only 4 rows from the edge of the 200 level.  Jessie and I walked over to the edge and looked over.  It was only a 10-15 foot drop, and you could easily have a conversation with someone in the 100 level.  It was Heritage jersey night in Ottawa.  There were retro jerseys all over the place with that big “0” on the front.  One guy in the 100 level said to me when I was looking down “Hey man, you have a stain on your jersey” and I chirped back “What does that 0 stand for on your jersey?  Doesn’t it mean 0 cups?” he smiled and said, “That’s a view good one!” The funny thing really, was the Sens have 11 Stanley Cups.  This fan is such an idiot that he didn’t even know his own team’s history.  Mind you, only a handful of people today seen the last Sens Stanley Cup since it was back in 1926

Jonas Gustavsson on the ice during pre-game warm-up

The players made their way out to the ice for the pregame warm-up, and the cheers started ringing through the building.  I have to tell you, being in an away building, and the Go! Leafs Go! chants are louder than that Go! Sens Go! chants is an amazing noise to be heard.   The Sens would definitely need to score first to take the crowd out of this game.   It was hard to tell at 1^st where I actually was.  Pretty much the entire upper bowl was Leafs fans and about half the lower bowl was Leafs fans.  It was a sea of Blue and White. 

The 1^st period was alright.  The Leafs seemed to be chasing the puck a lot, and couldn’t keep control of it much.  Toronto did manage to score 1^st on a power play goal by MacArthur.  The Sens tied it up though before the end of the period. 

During the 1^st intermission, Kendra and Dani came to join us in our section.  Our row had been empty throughout the 1^st period, so they thought they would come watch the second period with us.  About a minute after they sat down, the usher came over and very rudely asked to see their tickets.  Of course they didn’t have tickets for that section.  I told the usher that they were just from the other section over there and pointed to their section, and before I could finish what I was saying, she cut me off and said “I know, why do you think I asked to see their tickets?”  As Kendra and Dani were leaving Jessie turned to me and said “It’s because we are Leafs fans” in a very jokingly manner and the usher turned around and snipped back saying “No, actually it’s because they didn’t pay for 200 level seats.” I asked her where the people that paid for these seats were, and why my friends couldn’t sit here until the people came to claim their seats, if the seats had even been sold.

 I figured it was in my best interest to not get into an argument with this girl, but Jessie said to me as the usher was leaving that they don’t treat us like this in Toronto.  The usher stepped back down and cut in again and said, “Actually they do, I have been there before for a game”.  It’s funny that she said that, because I use to work at the Rogers Center and they actually encouraged you to move down after the 7^th inning if seats hadn’t been sat in all game.  And I’m not talking about moving from 500 level to 300 level, I’m talking about 500 level to field level.  I can understand them not allowing this in Scotia Bank Place, but the way the girl talked to us was unexceptional on a customer – business level.

About 5 minutes into the 2^nd period a few young men came and sat in our row.  We decided that we weren’t going to let this ruin the game for us, so we turned our attention to the game.  Every time that Kessel touched the puck Jessie would wave her sign around and yelled.  The same usher came down and told Jessie that she was not allowed to wave her sign while play was still going.  Jessie instantly questioned the girl about the new people sitting in our row.  The usher proceeded to send those people back to their section as well.  After a few minutes the Usher came back down to try and explain to Jessie how things work in Toronto.  Jessie cut her off and told her “I’m trying to watch this game I spent my money on to watch, please leave me alone” and that was the end of our problems with that usher. 

The rest of the game was entertaining, kind of.  The Leafs made it fun in the 3^rd period after falling behind 3-1 on a weak goal let in by The Monster.   MacArthur got his second of the game pulling the Leafs within 1.  That was as close as they would get.   It’s a little disappointing for spending near $800 on this trip.  I would have been fine with just the Leafs loss, but the treatment we got at the Scotia Bank Place was uncalled for.  I don’t believe I will be going back to there.  So Ottawa, next time, I think I will be going to Buffalo.