SENATORS RULE !

First of all, my apologies for my “non-report” from the Rangers game on Wednesday (weather related).

Bad news for both Toronto and Ottawa tonight as both have lost their # 1 Centres.  Austin Mathews has tweaked a knee and is out for three weeks.  The good news for the Leafs is that time period includes the All-Star break and their hiatus so actually only 6 NHL games will be lost.  Josh Norris had just returned to the Ottawa line-up recently only to have injured his shoulder again.

Somewhat surprisingly Ilya Samsanov took the Toronto crease, even though Matt Murray was scheduled to appear.  The first period ended at tied at 1 thanks to goals by the Leafs Joey Anderson and Thomas Chabot for the Senators.

23 seconds off the start of the second period Brady Tkachuk put the Senators in front off of Tim Stutzle’s second assist of the night.  The Leafs came roaring back with a net slam that led to William Nylander’s 27^th goal from Captain Johnny and Mo Reilly.  The Leafs ran in to some lazy penalties and d-zone clearance problems that led Ottawa to a 4-2 lead.  First, Derrick Brassard scored his 7^th on a PP from Claude Girioux and then Drake Batherson took advantage of a d-zone blunder to make it 4-2 at the buzzer.

Captain Brady put the game out of reach with his second – this time under the bar to extend his team lead to 48 points.   Veteran Claude Girioux put a ribbon on things with his 17^th with just over 5 minutes left to make the final 6-2.  You could see the Leafs faithful running for the exits after that one.

HOPPER NOTES:  Obviously, this was not the Leafs finest hour…the Senators played like a team – Toronto not so much…my ole’ pal Glennie who now works for the Belleville Senators, tells me to keep an eye out for Ridley Greig a Senators prospect that gets top line minutes (@ centre) in Belleville and has been called up to the big team after the hard-luck Josh Norris’ injury …he wears #17 in Ottawa and did not look out of place tonight…maybe the Leafs have already started to think about “Aruba, Bahama, C’mon pretty Momma”…was it just me, or did Sami look like he might have tweaked something “lower body” during a crazy scrum attack, mid-second period ?…that was Girioux’ 44^th point in 49 games for the Sens…that was the first 6 GA game for Sami and his first home loss…gotta feel for the guy – wasn’t expecting to play and gets a rare “off” night from his teammates…by the “last minute of play” there were more empty seats than Arizona !….did y’all miss me ?…enjoy the winter folks – it ain’t over yet – CHEERS