Tonight the Leafs visit the Bruins to end a home and home series that saw the Leafs lose the first game 6-3 on Wednesday. Now the big story coming into this game is the return of the one and only James Reimer who has been confirmed as the starter after missing over a month with concussion like symptoms. On a lesser lineup not Cody Franson will also slot in tonight for the blue and white in place of Keith Aulie.
So far this year the stats against Boston are not pretty, of course Reimer hasn’t played a game against the Big Bad Bruins and he was 3-0-1 against them last year. So far this year without Reimer the Leafs are 0-3-0 with 19 goals against, and while the Leafs played much better against the former champs on Wednesday they still made some mistakes. So what are the major factors that have led to 3 straight losses to the Bruins:
- Penalties; against the bruins this year the Leafs have taken 12 penalties and have been scored on 4 times
- Powerplay; the Leafs have had 10 powerplays in the 3 games against the Bruins yet have only managed to score 1 goal on the man advantage
- Tim Thomas, so far this year the Leafs have faced Tim Thomas in all three games and he has been great 5 goals against, 1 shutout in 3 games
It is pretty obvious to me what the Leafs need to do tonight in order to win; stay out of the box, capitalize on the powerplay opportunities they get, don’t make mental mistakes in our own end.
I should also mention that this is the first game of the Father and son roadtrip weekend, lets hope the Leafs put on a good show with their dads on hand!
Yesterday for the first time I asked some questions at the end of my blog and today I think I will continue with that.
Phil Kessel has 78 goals as a member of the Maple Leafs when do you think he will hit 80? Perhaps tonight against his former team?
Some have suggested that with the return of Reimer and Monsters improved play that the Leafs should look to flip him for a high return, do you agree disagree or think they should wait till the deadline?
On a side note Kulemin will be playing on the third line tonight with Grabovski and Crabb, something I mentioned as a distinct possibility in my blog yesterday, Frattin moves up to the second line.
GO LEAFS GO
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