DOWN 4-2 ?  THAT’S NOTHIN’ !

Tonight’s Toronto Male Leafs opponent, the New Jersey Devils are a shadow of their former self.  Currently holding down 8^th place in the Metropolitan Division, the Devils are nearly 30 points behind the leader Carolina and had lost their last 4 in a row.  They still have some marquee players in Dougie Hamilton and PK Subban on defence a 2019 first overall draft pick Jack Hughes leading the forwards, BUT.

Leaf Coach Sheldon Keefe had indicated pre game that he was going to reunite the super duos of Mathews/Marner and Tavares/Nylander for tonight’s game.  Was this mostly due to Saturday’s 5 goal third period comeback against Detroit ?  That was when Plan “B” was scrapped and the reversion to “original” lines paid off big time.

WOW !  What a scrambled up mess viewers got themselves into tonight !  New Jersey seemed highly motivated to remove any stink from their record to date with an aggressive start.  Jesper Boquist popped in the first piece of garbage off a Jack Hugues feed at the :47 second mark.  The Devils totally dominated their hosts in the first 5 minutes.  In fact, at the 3:40 mark Boquist scored his second.  Austin Mathews got off the snide, scoring his 26^th from Marner just 13 seconds later.  Former 30 goal Leaf scorer Andreas Johnsson got some real satisfaction scoring the third Devil goal, banishing Jack Campbell to the Leafs bench after allowing 3 goals in just 9 shots. Mathews made it respectable with a nice tip in from Reilly off a Marner feed.

Pretty much a nothing period for both sides saw the pesky Boquist set up Bastian for the 4 to 2 goal.  A Leaf PP opportunity at 8:50 really stood for Piss Poor.  A late rush chance from a previously invisible Alex Kerfoot caused some excitement and led to another Leafs power play to start the third.

Who needs the first 2 periods anyways ?  Jason Spezza came out of the penalty box to score an important early goal to end his 11 game scoring drought.  It also put the Leafs right back in the game.  A great pace ensued as the visitors tried to keep pace.  After an embarrassing 26 second scrum along the boards (can’t they invent a rule to stop this waste of time ?), you could tell the Leafs were back on track to repeat their comeback from Saturday night.  Marner with his 6^th in a row tied it up.  Toronto was up 8 shots to 1 at this point – it was really only a matter of time.

Ondrej Kase was called on a questionable penalty with just over 4 minutes left but Kerfoot (playing in Kase’s spot on the PK) led a counter attack and some superb patience to allow Ilya Mikaev to slam in the winner.  Mathews got his hat trick with a long one to net his 400^th NHL point in just 372 games.

HOPPER NOTES:  Some trade rumours have PK Subban coming “home” to play for the Leafs.  Was it just me or did he look a little slow, fat and a non-factor ? …at their halfway point of the season, the Leafs are at 28-10-3 – over .700 hockey….what a FABULOUS feature between periods outlining the work of the Newfoundland and Labrador citizens (near Gander) after the 9-11 disaster…if you ever get a chance to see “Come From Away” experience it !

Cheers – comments welcome !