Alright, so we've got two games under our belt and we've yet to record a victory. We've also allowed ten goals total in those games. And we lost to the Canadiens, and my least favorite team in the NHL, the Capitals. And we didn't look all that mean against the Caps, to boot. So, right now we're on pace to record 41 points, make the 2008 Islanders look like the 1981 Islanders, and hand the Bruins Taylor Hall on a platter.
Haaaaaaaang on. There's still 80 games left, and that's more than enough to make the playoffs - which, I still predict we will, by the way. I'm making a firm effort to be less fickle this season.
The Leafs/Canadiens game was a fun watch. I watched with a split of Leafs and Habs fans and I got so drunk I had to go watch the highlights the next morning because the 3rd/OT were pretty hazy. Toskala didn't have an awful game but didn't do anything that could potentially win us the game (like Carey Price did). We need more from our goalies if we're going to get into the playoffs. We massively outshot the Canadiens and my main man Matty Stajan popped in two goals. Nice to see Orr and Rosehill work some magic, too, as I love people taking on Laraque and Orr did quite well. Francois Beachemin, after being considered our defensive rock and future captain had an absolute HOWLER of a game and he can't play that badly like...ever again. Ever. Overall, tough loss but we look a point of of it so life goes on.
Against the Caps, we needed Toskala to bounce back and set the tone that the Caps couldn't be sniping on him from all areas. Toskala figured it was better to let three in during the first period so we could toss Gustavsson to the most offensively gifted team in the NHL and he hopefully looked bad enough to give him another start over the Monster later in the week. Stalberg looked a lot more ordinary in this game (he is, after all, human...a human rookie, no less). Jamal Mayers was strong on the forecheck (I cannot believe I just gave Mayers credit for something) and if we can take one positive from this game, it's the 3rd. We settled down a bit and kept pushing in a game that was already gone, basically. The conditioning of the Leafs really shows as the 3rd period is usually reserved for defensive collapses. Minor note from that game: was anyone as surprised as I was with Orr/Primeau/Mayers getting as much ice time as they did?
So, those two games are done. Two. We've still got 97.84% of the season left. I think that's more than enough time to turn things around. What needs to be turned around, specifically? Well, it's fairly obvious. The usual suspects: goaltending, defence, and penalty killing. In that order.
GOALTENDING
Tick-tock, Toskala. Toskala has showed over and over that he really seems to be an average goaltender. He's healthy, he's got a back-up to push him, he's got a funny finnish accent, so what's the problem? It's seeming more and more that Vesa himself is the issue. Again, we're only two games in, but Gustavsson came in cold and still had a slightly better game than Vesa. However, It's clear that he's still a 24 year old goalie with a lot of promise as opposed to the Swedish Jesus that we've made him out to be - point being, we still need to have a good game in front of him to win some hockey games.
If we're sticking with the "no sense of entitlement", Gustavsson should get the nod next game as Toskala just hasn't been good enough. I think it's noteworthy that we have Joey McDonald with the Marlies who has proven on an awful Islanders team he can be a decent goaltender with a good save percentage. Keep him in the back of your mind and good thing we didn't lose him on waivers.
DEFENCE
Okay, we've been bad defensively the last couple games. Unbelievably so. And with all our new defencemen it was expected that they'd solve this issue. However, there's a couple of things we need to keep in mind.
#1: Not one member of our defence is playing with the same partner he played with last year. It takes time to gel and adjust.
#2: These new blueliners need to adapt to Ron Wilson's style. Actually, some of the old blueliners still need to adapt to Ron Wilson's style.
#3: Luke Schenn is an aggresive, intelligent, physical player but he's also still 20 years old.
#4: I still can't believe I gave Jamal Mayers some positive feedback.
To dish out some praise, I'm really happy with Mike Komisarek. Yeah, he's taken up some real estate in the penalty box but the majority of those were in an emotional game against his old team and the penalty against Washington was debatable. He's played hard, physically, and has shown a lot of leadership. He's got my vote for captain. I've also got to point out how much he's changed Tomas Kaberle's game. Kaberle looks patient, poised, and is back to playing cool, collected, and smart hockey. I forgot how much of an asset Kaberle is to our team. Ian White has played good hockey as well and I think it's well known now that he's the #5 D.
Beachemin has been GOD AWFUL. What is going on with him? He was above and beyond our best pointman in the pre-season but he just looks unbelievably rattled and it looks like it's rubbing off on Schenn. Yikes.
PENALTY KILL
One of the biggest things when Mike Komisarek takes a penalty is that we miss him killing it. The forwards have done alright (especially in the WSH game) but again, the blueliners have looked real bad. This needs to be adjusted. Something does.
Is anyone else a bit surprised by the lack of hard-nosed play from the Leafs? I was dying for someone to knock the face off of somebody in the first period of the caps game but it just didn't happen. Sigh.
Anyway, on a closing note, how good has that Mitchell/Wallin/Stempniak line been? Surprising stuff.
Hold on tight boys, it's going to be a rocky ride.
L&L
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