Pre-Season Game 1: The Battle Against Panic

Oh my God! The Leafs lost 5-0 to Ottawa last night! Let’s gather our torches, form a mob and burn the ACC to the ground!

Come on, people. This is exhibition play. And as the Star’s Paul Hunter mentions in this entertaining game story, “it’s foolhardy to draw sweeping conclusions based on exhibition play.”

Exactly.

It would’ve been great if the split-squad team in blue-and-white made a closer game of it. Especially since a corporate sponsor filled the stands with Real Fans, the kind of Real Fans who rarely gain entry into the ACC these days.

Me, I kind of lost interest after the Sens went up by 3 and retired to a darkened room to watch a loop of this. But before leaving, I jotted down a few things I learned last night:

* You know what tastes really good with Coca-Cola Zero when the Leafs have a two-man advantage? The stuff this dude makes.
* Apparently, Mike Brown has built a time machine and gone back to 1989 to steal Wendel Clark’s Fu Manchu.
* When Jussi Rynnas was a little boy growing up in Pori, Finland, during school plays he would always play a giant sequoia.
* Even if Chris Neil had no body and was just a floating head, it’d be awfully hard not to punch him in the face.
* When Bill Watters and Nick Kypreos go out for dinner, after one of them orders the other one automatically says, “I disagree.”
* The time has come for the NHL to ban Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” from rink playlists.

You know, if anything, I’m conflicted about the Leafs grueling preseason schedule. On the one hand, it does give the coaches a chance to tinker with line combinations and work on special teams (cough) and get a look-see at some of the younger guys.

But 9 games in 12 nights? That seems excessive, even with a large camp. One of the things that really screwed the team last year was injury. It would be utterly tragic if an important player was sidelined for a few weeks before the season begins.

Anyway, I leave you with this song:

 

Comments

[Anthony]

Welcome Vinay,
Was reading Doug's blog and seen the link, nice move by The Star to add a leafs blog... if this was your first go at it I have to say it was pretty good... I assume when the real games start the blog will have some more meat to it.
What do you think about Big D as captain in terms of leadership on and off the ice.?

Anthony

[Carla]

As a longtime Star blog-reader who loved Chris Young's "The Hockey Page" & "JABS" but loathes Damien Cox's "The Spin", I suspect I am going to enjoy this new blog! Seems to me that a Leafs fan's primary requirement (more important, I'd even argue, than a sense of optimism) is a sense of humour... about the team and about him/herself as a fan. So far, so good, Vinay!

Incidentally... Paul Hunter's best line today was this one: 'Those fans ended up mixing a substantial amount of boos with their Coke'. Heh-heh-heh!

[Johnny the Juice]

Good to see the Leafs are already in mid-season form...

[Peter]

Welcome to the Toronto Star blogs. Doug Smith's blog is daily reading, and he suggested that we head over here for a glance. If you keep up the entertaining posts like this, you'll easily make my daily reading list. Well done, and congrats on landing a great gig!

[Brian Shaughnessy]

The 0 goals-for doesn't bother me. But what's with the 5 against? Aren't we supposed to have good goalies and the best defence (1 through 7 or 8) in the entire league? I just saw the 1st 2 goals. The 2nd was Phaneuf going out wide overaggressively and being gotten around. OK, so maybe he was anxious in his first appearance as the new captain. But on the 1st goal, it's 2-on-2 to the right of Gus, all good, Then a 3rd Sen comes down the slot, and no one picks him up, and he scores. How deja vu from last year. In the replays, you see a Leaf camped (hiding?) at the side of the net to Gus's left, hoping to pounce on a shootaround that never comes. Maybe that Leaf could have employed himself better by setting in the middle of the slot? Do you think?
Defence is pretty simple. One of us takes one (a different one) of them for a nice, neat 5-on-5 (5 pairings and hopefully each of our guys is more or less up to the task). It's the old "play the man and not the puck, stupid". Ron Wilson is adept at controlling questioners, but does he really get this simple, but critical, concept of playing the man. The puck by itself can do nothing to hurt you.

[Leaf fan in Van]

Wow, I read all the panic and you would think they just lost game 7 of the Stanley Cup! People look at the lineup last night. They have to play 9 in 12 not to mention 5 back to back! I can't wait to see all the optimism back after they win tonight. And for all you Leaf haters from other cities: Vancouver is going to go 0-164; Calgary will be 164-0, right? Get real. The only pre-season games I am going to place any credance to will be the last 2.

[Jon K.]

It wasn't that they lost 5-0 that causes me to get a little peeved... it was the fact that it was the same plays that didn't work last season being trotted out. PP passes across the front of the net to no one was the one that doesn't work with no one taking the front of the net. Kadri looked out of place and hopefully will be able to figure it out soon enough. Phaneuf looked absolutely brutal and for a guy who prides himself on intensity, and is wearing the C, certainly looked disinterested in playing the game. Yes, I know it's pre-season, but you need to bring the intensity every night, every game, every second - especially when you're pointed out as being the guy to set the example.

It's sad to see that the special teams that were crap last year, and most of the year before, haven't tried something different. Then you at least can say, "I hope it's going to get better", instead of "that old crap again?"

Gunnarson looked really good, comparatively, and I thought that Brown was good on the PK. I also thought that Armstrong and Versteeg were solid in a game where they were the number one line.

[Andrew]

I enjoy Eye of the Tiger during games so much that I give it a spin every time I get in a fight when playing NHLPA '93. It's too perfect. MOTION DENIED!