Games 12

Toronto Maple Leafs at New York Rangers
Final Score: 4 -1 Leafs

Chris:

There we go! That’s more like it!

We’ve won two games in a row. No matter how tenuous the claim that’s officially a strike.

I think you may see Toskala moving ever so sloooowly into the starter’s position now, if by now you mean finally. He’s had two solid starts in net now, the momentum is with him and there’s also going to be the psychological aspect. The team is starting to feel like they can win in front of Toskala and that’s huge. Like anyone else, when the team mentality is sucking (see recent uninspiring start to season) they’re going to over think the situation, play conservative hockey and generally beat themselves. When they think they can win, they’re going to play good aggressive hockey and make things happen on the ice.

Aside from a slow start on Saturday it wasn’t a particularly noteworthy game. Yes we managed to protect our two goal lead in the third period, which has been a problem as of late. But with that exception it wasn’t spectacular hockey. Rather, it was the kind of game we need to win on a nightly basis. One we where show up, get ourselves on the board and then protect the lead through smart hockey and capable defense.

In net, see above, Toskala was more than capable, shutting down the Rangers and even managing to fan the Rangers when they had a two man advantage. Goal scorers for the evening were Kubina, Antropov, Pohl and Kilger with the empty netter.

Steve says:

I thought that we finally played some good positional defensive hockey which has been missing since...well...since as long as I can recall....years even...
A win against the Rangers, one of if not THE lowest scoring team, is not super spectacular, but a winis a win and since it is 2 in a row, I'll take it and love it!