Back to Back donuts for the Buds, and another Monster scare…
The Leafs continue to trend upwards as they kick off the third month of this ’09-’10 campaign, giving reason to think the 3-nil blanking at the hands of the Sabres earlier this week was an anomaly, and not a return to earlier form, as demonstrated in October.
After being shut out, the Buds responded in kind, handing Les Habitants a donut, in front of a near-silent Canadiens home-crowd, compliments of goals by pick-and-shovel men Colton Orr and Jeff Finger, as well as an absolute highlight-reel, top-corner, twine-seeking vulcanized-rubber missle by Matt Stajan who found himself a couple steps behind Hab defenders after expertly corralling a skipping, long-distance Phil Kessel feed.
Stajan made no mistake, burying the biscuit , locking up a much needed pair of points against a division rival. Hey, is this Colton Orr’s first ever game winning goal?
On a more serious note, Jonas Gustavsson shut it down after shutting the Habs out in the first, due to further heart rate irregularities for which he was treated in pre-season. His condition normalized between the first and second periods, but Bench Boss Wilson prudently decided to have him hospitalized overnight in Montreal where he was kept for observation. He’ll be returning today for a cardiac workup by Toronto doctors. Thoughts and well wishes continue to pour in from electronic social networking sources Twitter and Facebook, as hockey forums everywhere lit up, in anticipation of some good news about Jonas’ condition.
Stellar effort by reliable callup Joey MacDonald, who preserved the shutout bid with some great goaltending. The likely starter against Columbus will be Joey Mac, as Toskala continues to ramp up for a return to action after tweaking his groin recently.
With the unexpected thinning of the Blue Jackets blueline, combined with the recent struggles of sophomore southpaw Steve Mason, ordained the teams starter after a sensational rookie season, the leafs find themselves with a chance to continue the trend toward respectability. Keys to the game will be doing exactly what they did last night: traffic in front of the net on all four lines, taking control by out-working opponents along the wall and in the corners, and staying out of the box.
Between Beauchemin and Komisarek, containing Rick Nash may be a manageable task, but they’ll also need to keep an eye on red-hot Antoine Vermette, who has been huge for Columbus all year. Perhaps Schenn has been saving it up to lay another pasting on the shifty pivot, just like last season’s Youtube gem…
From Crash The Crease, wishing Jonas Gustavsson a speedy, and full recovery…
GO LEAFS
