NOT IN OUR TOWN !

A Saturday night in mid-March pitting two Canadian NHL contenders face to face.  It doesn’t get much better.  The Edmonton Oilers led by their generational superstar Connor McDavid.  He’s on pace for 154 points and 67 goals.  Those are Wayne Gretzky/Mario Lemieux numbers.  The Toronto Maple Leafs, after a couple of days off, looked to get back in to it, melding their newly acquired 6 additions in to the system after a 5 game road trip.

One of those newcomers, Noel Accuri started Toronto off with his second as a Leaf converting a nice forecheck goal from his new pals David Kampf and Zach Ashton-Reese.  The Oilers made some deadline deals as well adding Mathias Ekholm, a badly needed steadying influence on the back end.  He popped one in just :22 seconds after the Accuri goal.  Oft injured Evander Kane made his presence felt scoring on a wrap around set up by McDavid making the game 2-1 heading for the intermission.

After McDavid scored his 55^th to start the second, this reporter started to wonder.  The Leafs had been playing well, they had outshot their opponent by a significant margin and most importantly, they were skating stride foe stride with the Oliers.  Then came the “AHA” moment – Mitchell Marner intercepted a weak, cross ice pass deep in the offensive zone – Holy Macinaw (sorry Joe) what a double deke, off both posts goal to turn things around ! Willy Nye got involved almost immediately with his 34^th (career high) in through the 5 hole.  Captain Johnny continued the onslaught, converting a perfect pas from AM34 and within a 3 minute stretch, the Leafs had a 4-3 lead.  Cherry on top, Johnny T scores his 30 on a PPG to make it  5-3.

This was a high intensity game.  You could tell the tick for tack – hit for hit nature of the game from the get-go.  A good example was the mano au mano wrasslin’ match from Kane and Bunting early in the third.  Auston Mathews scored his 30^th on PPG with the help of JT91.  That was Mathews 8^th shot on goal.  With Liligren in the box, Leon Draisaitl squeaked in a short sider to make it interesting, but it would seem Toronto had it covered looking to seek revenge after that rather embarrassing 5-2 loss in Edmonton back on March 1.  Noel Accari not only got the first Leaf goal but he was up for the last with an empty-netter.  Final SOG 38-28 and 7-4 Tranna.

HOPPER NOTES:  What a great hockey game ! …the scorers scored, the goalies made big saves and the pluggers showed up…the Oilers looked bigger, stronger and more confident to me on this night…LOVED Sarah Polley’s opening voice over…to me, there was a notable scrum response  by the Leafs late in the second when both McCabe and Lafferty were very quick to clear the area after a stoppage in play…little, intangible things…enjoy the rest of your evening and don’t forget to put you clocks ahead – CHEERS !