Leafs VS Sens (and other pressing matters)

So, the Leafs continue with the pre-game pomp and ceremony with yet another theme night, engineered to instill pride in our history. Nice to see. Next time, if Rick Vaive is in the damn house, see if you can include him at center ice. Just sayin’…

Somebody called in recently to a local Leafs radio program with a theme night suggestion, and I think he may be on to something: what about ‘Win a damn game night’? Nice ring to it…

Lets hope the latest chapter in the storied ‘Battle Of Ontario’ proves to be more than a girl-fight on ice…the last installment was a mutual embarrassment. Look for tough guy Colton Orr to extend his Sens counterpart Matt Carkner’s league leading fight record. But only in attempts, though. I’ll go out on a limb and say Orr hands him his keyster (sp?) within the first five minutes of the game. And that ‘s my limit as far as predictions go. Too many variables to call this one, like: which two teams show up tonight? Does Kovalev make an appearance? Does Toskala continue to build on his respectability-streak? I think this one will be decided by two factors: goaltending, and penalties. The Leafs power play is on a tear, yet the PK continues to lag. Ottawa has a pretty effective PK, and are also decent on the PP at home, which may prove to mitigate the Bud’s advantage in the man advantage category. So it is likely down to goaltending. Lecalire’s confidence seems to be fading a little, and if the Leafs can continue to dominate their opponents with shots again tonight, we may be able to exploit that opportunity, pending a third straight solid outing from Vesa, who has begun showing the resolve we saw when he was called out publicly last spring, and proceeded to perform like a Vezina candidate until he was shut down to go under the knife.

Keys for Toronto are discipline, solid defensive positioning (which fosters the aforementioned discipline), plenty of rubber landing on Leclaire’s doorstep, lots of crease traffic, and solid goaltending. If the D play a sound positional game, the need to hook and hold is reduced against a fairly mobile Sens team. It would make sense to keep the rookie Carl Gunnarsson up and sit Exelby, who has a bit of a problem getting flat-footed by fleet-footed forwards.

A little pride, and a lot more focus, especially earlier on will be important. With the number of Leaf fans found at Sens games, there really is no home ice advantage to the Sens. It’s almost like a home crowd minus the local media, and the over-primped sushi-set yawning their way throughout the evening…wonder if we could convince them all, like the Phoenix home crowd maintains, that the best seats are up higher…

Now, back to those pre-game ceremonies: I like them. We need to remember who our Leaf heroes are, but how do you overlook a former captain, with multiple 50 goal seasons when you’re paying homage to his era?? And with him in the building?? Ouch.

Go Leafs