Strong Effort Wasted For Second Straight Night

After two games of the 2007-2008 Battle of Ontario, the Ottawa Senators boast a perfect record while the Maple Leafs head back home having managed only one point in an overtime loss. In theory, this should be yet another discouraging start to the season for the boys in blue; however, their play in this season opening home and home series with the newly anointed Eastern Conference Champions has been anything but discouraging. In fact, it has been quite the contrary for the Maple Leafs as they showed they are quite capable of skating with the Senators. Unlike in previous seasons when the Senators made beating the Maple Leafs look far too easy, routinely posting heavily lopsided scores, the past two match ups have been available for the taking.

The Ottawa Senators raised their Eastern Conference Championship banner prior to their home opener surely causing many Senators fans that still seem to suffer from an inferiority complex toward the Maple Leafs to enjoy it for all the wrong reasons. For their sake, it is a shame the Senators could not have opened their home schedule against the St. Louis Blues. Nevertheless, the Maple Leafs matched the Senators energy in the first frame generating thirteen shots on Martin Gerber. It was the Senators though that got on the board first on Daniel Alfredsson’s second goal of the season when he beat Vesa Toskala mid way through the period.

Half way through the second period, Alex Steen thought he had tied the game for the Maple Leafs jamming in a loose puck that sat in the goal crease after Jason Blake had taken the puck to the net creating a scramble in front of Martin Gerber. Instead the referees ruled Blake had made incidental contact with Gerber while cutting across the net preventing him from being able to make a save. The goal was disallowed, yet a penalty for goaltender interference was not assessed to the Maple Leafs on the play. The incident was much like the one in a game between the Maple Leafs and Islanders last season on February 22nd, 2007 when Kerry Fraser ruled Alexei Ponikarovsky had made incidental contact with Islander netminder Rick Dipietro rendering him unable to make an attempt at stopping a Mats Sundin shot. Though rarely used, a portion of rule 69.3 in the NHL rulebook permits a referee to disallow a goal based on incidental contact with the netminder without assessing a goaltender interference penalty.

Minutes later, the Maple Leafs caught another bad break. Thinking they had killed off a John Pohl roughing penalty, a stoppage in play prompted a review of a play that occurred during that Senators power play. Though Leafs netminder Vesa Toskala appeared to turn aside a deflection off the skate of Dany Heatley, video evidence showed that in fact Toskala’s pad was behind the goal line and that the puck too had crossed the line.

The Maple Leafs did respond quickly tying the game at two goals a side by the end of the second period. Mats Sundin got the Maple Leafs on the scoreboard with his first goal of the season and in the process; he equaled Darryl Sittler’s long standing team record of 389 goals as a Maple Leaf. Thirty two seconds later, Matt Stajan struck with his second goal of the season capping a dominant second period performance by the Maple Leafs.

Too many penalties though were what inevitably cost the Maple Leafs another game. With Chad Kilger in the penalty box serving two minutes for roughing, Daniel Alfredsson scored the game winner with just under five minutes to play in the third period. Giving any quality offensive team ten opportunities with the man advantage is asking for trouble and tonight the Senators did not let the Maple Leafs off the hook picking up two power play goals. Conversely, the Maple Leafs struggled again with the man advantage going 0-7 for the second straight game.

Vesa Toskala was outstanding in his debut as a Maple Leaf, much improved over his startlingly ineffective play during the exhibition season. He is likely to receive a second consecutive start and a warm ovation from the Air Canada Centre faithful when the Maple Leafs take on the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night.