The playoff placings in the Eastern Conference of the NHL are starting to shape up. The Atlantic has Boston, Toronto and Tampa and the Metropolitan has Carolina and New Jersey. That leaves 3 positions left for post season play. Contenders for those 3 spots would appear to be the Rangers with 57 points, Washinton 56 and the Penguins at 54. Florida and tonight’s Leafs opponent the New York Islanders are lurking around the edges with 51 points apiece.
This will be the first of a 5 game homestand for Toronto. Nemisis’ will include the Rangers, Senators, Capitals and arch nemesis, the Boston Bruins. TJ Brodie will still be out, Dryden Hunt has cleared waivers and Ilya Samsonov will take his 4th consecutive spot in goal to start the busy week.
What started off to be a snoozefest developed in to a pretty good period of hockey. There were 8 whistles within the first 5 minutes and one legitimate chance at either end. The only thing that stood out was the play Kyle Palmeri and the TML line of Kerfoot-Kampf-Engvall. Then, a hockey game broke out with continual end to end opportunities. The next whistle/break came at the 17 mark and the snow shovelling guys took barrels of excess off. Anders Lee broke the goose egg off a loose puck tap-in with :22 seconds left to send the combatants to the room.
You wouldn’t think that moving 2 players up/down your line-up card would make much of difference. Sheldon Keefe did just that to start the second and whoa, what a difference. Marner moved alongside Mathews and they had a great shift to start an explosive period. William Nylander roofed his 25th @ 5:07. An Anders Lee’s shortsider put the Islanders back in front. Captain Johnny put the Leafs back even with a tip feed from Nylander that was accommodated by a quick thinking Samsonov forwarding a 2-liner up on a line change. Calle Jarnkrok kept up his scoring pace, this time from a Holl feed up and a brilliant high overhead from the aforementioned William Nylander. Willy’s 4th point of the period moved him to 399 on his career to give the Leafs a 4-2 lead. HMMMM, you don’t think Willy Styles was trying to send a message to the NHL All-Star selection committee do you ?
Not much to say about the third period except that AM34 got his 25th off a beautiful 2 zone pass from Justin Holl for his second point of the night.
HOPPER NOTES: Johnny T had 8 shots in that second period…is Ashton Reese good enough to hold down a regular spot in April ? …I wish we still had Matt Martin on our team…Ilya Samsonov has a 9.38 SV % at home and he is now 13-0-1 @ SCOTIABANK after tonight’s 31 save performance…Mitchell Marner’s 20 point home record came to an end tonight…(I was a little surprised Keefe didn’t put him out for a late PK)…to all of you lucky ducks heading south these days…Bon Voyage