Leafs @ Bruins The Aftermath

Tonight the Toronto Maple Leafs lost their 4^th straight games to the defending Stanley cup champs. The worst part of this loss was the Leafs were outplayed badly in the 3^rd period when they still had a chance to come back in the game. Now as per usual after a bad loss or a couple in a row people in Leafs Nation are beginning to panic, to them I say calm down a bit then let’s look at this realistically. After a slow start to the season the Boston Bruins are hitting their stride and have been an impressive 13-0-1 in their last 14 games. The Leafs who were expected to be a bubble playoff team outperformed expectation in the early part of the season and since have had some injury problems bringing them back to earth a bit. Is it disappointing to lose to a division rival 2 games in a row, yes. Is it natural to want some changes made to the team so they can compete with the top teams in the NHL, yes of course. On the other hand we must also look at the strides this team has made in the past few years, and instead of being 3-8-3 in November we were above .500.

Ok so does this mean I think that tonight’s effort in the 3^rd was great.. no, do I see room for improvement , of course. However I feel I must look for improvement in realistic areas. For one I expect a good game against the Rangers, rebounding from a pair of losses is important and the Leafs can ill afford to go into a slide now. I will mention tonight the Leafs improved in taking penalties only taking 2 and allowing 0 power-play goals. The line juggling that Ron Wilson did was good and given a few more days of practice and another game may produce more results. I thought Kulemin and Grabo were very good tonight. The return of Reimer tonight was huge and although the Leafs lost our goaltending was not an issue at all.

My final message in this blog is that there is no need for a huge trade right now, the Leafs do not need to be blown up, and instead they need to stay true on the path they are on. Also when some bodies begin to come back (Army in a week) hopefully they can outperform expectations once again. GO LEAFS GO