Toronto Maple Leafs

Kulemin Kick Starts Leaf Season

Nikolai Kulemin scored what is hopefully the first of many game winning goals in the NHL against the Stanley Cup Champion Detroit Red Wings in fine style.  In on a breakaway started by his own heady interception of a lazy neutral zone pass by the Wings, Kulemin placed a picture perfect shot past Chris Osgood for the 3rd Leaf marker of the night.  At the time it put the Leafs ahead 3-1, and eventually it would stand up as the winner on the night of the Red Wings coronation as NHL Champs - Banner Raising be damned.

The goal, and many other plays on the evening, highlighted what the Leafs hope to do in the near, and long term, future.  Out skate and out work the opposition, play positionally sound hockey, score opportunistically, and lock things down defensively.  While not without it’s blemishes, this one was certainly a keeper as far as the Leafs are concerned.

Vesa Toskala looked very steady and at times spectacular in net, turning aside 35 of 37 shots. That’s good for an opening night .946 save percentage, and a 2.00 GAA.  We’ll see where his numbers go from here, but so far so good.

In front of him, the Leafs blocked 11 of the Red Wings shots, and overall the team was punishing physically with Jonas Frogren leading the way with a couple of thunderous body checks, including one that just missed providing Johan Franzen with an early trip to the infirmary.  Luke Schenn also played a physical brand of hockey, registering 3 hits himself.

Areas of concern include the faceoff circle, where Dominic Moore was the lone Leaf to win more than he lost.  Antropov and Grabovski in particular suffered at the faceoff dot, going 3 for 14 and 1 for 12 respectively.  Both will have to improve in that area drastically if they’re going up against other team’s top players regularly.

In an interesting twist, favoured son of the Leafs media, Matt Stajan, has clearly been relegated to a 4th line role, playing only 9:19 of ice time in the entire game.  Looks like all those predictions of Stajan leading the team as a future captain - based purely on the speculation around his wonderful work as the Leafs NHLPA rep - will have to fall by the wayside for now.  Consider that yet another indication that the Leafs media have their collective head stuck up their collective… well you know where I’m going with this.

As far as individual efforts for the forwards go, Dominic Moore, Jiri Tlusty, Niklas Hagman, Mikhail Grabovski, and Jason Blake all played solid games offensively… when’s the last time you could list a half dozen Leafs not named Mats as positives offensively - Sundin who? On the back end, the play of Frogren, Van Ryn, and Kubina was excellent.  Kaberle was less obvious, and Schenn wasn’t out there making huge play after huge play, but they were solid together at even strength.

I would like to see Kulemin continue his adjustment to the North American game as he seems to be picking up his game fairly quickly (so says I based on one game of observation… hope I don’t regret that much), Ponikarovsky needs to continue to get opportunities offensively… he will produce with time and experience.  Antropov had his ice-time numbers ratcheted back, and I’ll chalk that up to his lack of speed, but he is obviously putting effort into playing a solid game defensively, and he’s important to the Power Play.

Going forward, I would like to see Toskala to continue his high level of play, I want the Leafs to keep skating as hard (if not harder) than the Red Wings do, and I want them to keep giving big ice time to the youngins.

Don’t expect tonight to be the norm, but I would have to argue that they looked a lot better than a “last place” cellar dweller should.  Don’t plan the parades or anything, but you might have to stop drawing up line combos with John Tavares at centre.