Leafs Win Second Straight

When the Maple Leafs losing streak reached four straight games after a loss to the Montreal Canadiens in a shootout this past Tuesday night, they appeared to be a team spiraling out of control having dropped to second last place in the Eastern Conference and talk of axing any or all of John Ferguson Jr., Paul Maurice and Richard Peddie spread throughout the sports pages of Toronto’s newspapers. Two wins later and suddenly there are a lot more people getting back into the Maple Leafs corner.

Following a 4-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins – the Maple Leafs second win in three contests against Pittsburgh this season – John Ferguson Jr. even had reason to gloat. All three of his major off season acquisitions – Jason Blake, Mark Bell and Vesa Toskala – played significant roles in giving the Maple Leafs only their second winning streak of a season that is already twenty seven games old.

Bell, who started on the Maple Leafs’ top line with Mats Sundin and Nik Antropov, opened the scoring early in the first period with a quick shot from the slot after taking a feed from Mats Sundin. Sundin’s assist gave him points in fifteen straight home games to begin the season breaking the eighty three year old record previously held by Babe Dye set in 1924-1925.

In the second period, Jason Blake snapped an eighteen game goalless drought when he teamed up with Kyle Wellwood to score on arguably the longest two on nothing in NHL history starting from their own blueline. Wellwood carried the puck and held on until sliding a pass to Blake in the goal mouth who flipped it over the blocker of Penguins’ netminder Dany Sabourin.

Vesa Toskala made thirty stops including several of the spectacular variety down the stretch as Pittsburgh pressed for the tying goal. The win restored Toskala’s record on the season to the 500 mark at eight wins, eight losses and two overtime/shootout losses.

Matt Stajan, Alex Steen and Boyd Deveraux drew the assignment of keeping Sidney Crosby’s line in check and for the most part, Crosby’s unit was a non factor throughout the game. Evgeni Malkin made like Alexei Yashin and disappeared last night registering a minus three rating and turning the puck over constantly in the neutral zone. Apparently he had over twenty minutes of ice time but he certainly went unnoticed, at least in terms of positive contributions.

The Maple Leafs’ defensive play was as good as it has been all season as they prevented the Penguins from establishing an offensive presence in their zone.

Looking ahead to next week, the Maple Leafs will try to reach their first three game winning streak of the season when they will take on the Nashville Predators at Air Canada Centre on Tuesday night.