Flyers Still Have Answer For The Leafs

For an unknown reason, certain teams have more trouble than usual when playing against a few particular teams. For the Maple Leafs, their troublesome teams seem to be the Buffalo Sabres and most recently, the Philadelphia Flyers. The Leafs have a tremendous amount of trouble beating the Sabres in Buffalo and always have to fight for a win at home. As for the Flyers, well, the Leafs cannot beat them anywhere. In the last four head to head games with the Flyers, two have been played at Air Canada Centre and the other two have been played at the recently newly named Wachovia Centre. In these last four games, they have been outscored by a total score of 21 to 3, scoring no more than one goal in a game.

Ed Belfour has also not looked good in these games which is concerning as he is usually somebody that the Maple Leafs can always count on. Whenever the Leafs play the Flyers, Belfour looks as though he is fighting the puck and never looks comfortable with his positioning. Not to blame these loses on Belfour, he certainly has not received a lot of support from his defense in these games. In tonight’s game, at least two goals were scored with nobody infront clearing away Flyers. On one goal, McCabe lost the puck behind the goal catching his teammates out of position. Two Flyers were left all alone infront of the goal and were easily able to jam the puck in without any difficulty. The other goal resulted in Bryan Marchment being beaten to the net and the puck carrier was able to jam the puck in alone infront.

The Leafs will have trouble winning games without solid defensive play; moreover, their trouble scoring goals has made the poor defense stand out even more. The Calgary game on Tuesday notwithstanding, the Leafs have only scored two goals in their last four games starting with the Senators on January 8th and finishing tonight against the Flyers. That kind of production is simply not going to get it done. Missing three players in Robert Reichel, Owen Nolan and Alex Mogilny that essentially makeup the Leafs second line does not help; however, the Leafs must find a way to generate more offense in order to start winning some important upcoming games.

The Leafs will take on the New York Islanders on Tuesday at Air Canada Centre and the Washington Capitals on Wednesday at MCI Centre before coming back home to play their long time rivals, the Montreal Canadiens, next Saturday.