Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Hits of the week! Courtesy of NHL.com

Bruins nip Buds 4-3 in shoot out


Well, going into the third period things were looking pretty good for the Leafs. Boston hadn't won a game all year when trailing going int o the final period. However, when you take four consecutive penalties to open a period that you should be able to pretty much walk through, you're just flirting with disaster. Especially when you do it against one of this years best teams in the Boston Bruins. Who by the way are now tied with San Jose for the best record in the NHL, at the halfway point of the season.

The Leafs seemed to have the game well in hand until that point, with goals from Jason Blake, Lee Stempniak, and Brad May who scored his first as a Leaf. Stepniak and Blake each had an assist and a shootout goal to round out three point nights for each of them. This 4-3 shootout loss make 3 in row for the Buds who have now dropped 8 of their last 10.



The Leafs acquired forward Ryan Hamilton from the Wild today while forward Robbie Earl went the other way. While it appears by the numbers that Toronto came out on top, one wonders if this was simply a move for the sake of making one.

The Leafs next see action against that same Wild team next Tuesday the 27th, and as always you can hear the game live, right here on Bench Brawl!

Monday, January 19, 2009

Maurice evens up with 2-0 win over Leafs

Cam Ward made 35 saves and the Carolina Hurricanes snapped a five-game losing streak with a 2-0 victory over the Maple Leafs on Monday night, giving coach Paul Maurice a victory in his return to Toronto.

Joe Corvo and Chad LaRose scored to back Ward’s second shutout of the season for Carolina.

The Maple Leafs were blanked for the second consecutive home game.

Maurice spent the past two seasons coaching the Maple Leafs and acknowledged recently that games against his former team mean a little more.

Toronto won 6-4 at Carolina on Thursday, but the Hurricanes returned the favor in the rematch by winning 2-0, earning key points as they look to get back in the Eastern Conference playoff picture.

Corvo broke a scoreless tie just more than a minute after Tomas Kaberle was penalized for clearing the puck over the glass from his own end. The Hurricanes defenseman one-timed a shot past a screened Vesa Toskala at 16:26 of the second period.


LaRose scored with just 4.9 seconds left in the period. Maple Leafs forward Alexei Ponikarovsky had a great chance to clear the puck from his team’s end, but put it on the stick of Matt Cullen instead. Cullen quickly found LaRose all alone in front and it was 2-0 after 40 minutes.

Toronto came out with more desperation in the third period but Ward was equal to the challenge—getting his pad on Niklas Hagman’s shot from in close before turning away Ian White’s slap shot a few moments later. Ward later stopped Ponikarovsky’s chance from the top of the crease to preserve the shutout.

The Maple Leafs have had no trouble scoring away from home of late, but it’s been 127 minutes, 51 seconds since they’ve found the back of the net at Air Canada Centre.

That was only part of the bad news for the team Monday.

Toronto coach Ron Wilson said after the morning skate that he expected to have defenseman Mike Van Ryn back in the lineup for the first time since Dec. 18. However, Van Ryn failed to pass a test to clear the way for his return from a concussion and remained sidelined.

Toronto has just three wins in its last 13 games and heard a few boos from the home crowd once again. The team faces Boston at home on Wednesday before getting a couple of days off during this weekend’s All-Star break.