Saturday, January 06, 2007

Beantown Meltdown

OK. I have to acknowledge that the 10-2 thrashing that the Leafs inflicted on the Bruins was impressive since they were missing Darcy Tucker, Mike Peca, Kyle Wellwood, Alexei Ponikarovsky and Nik Antropov. I can't explain it except the Bruins are in worse shape in net than the Leafs. But the last 2 times the Leafs won blow outs, they followed up with a 3-game and 7-game losing streaks.

Let's keep this in perspective. They will be hard pressed to make the playoffs. The Leafs are 5th overall in scoring with an average of 3.15 goals per game and an impressive 1st in shots per game. But they are 25th in defense with an average of 3.24 goals given up per game. Their powerplay is also 5th overall but their penalty killers are 21st. But looking at Anaheim, they are 2nd overall in both offense and defense.

So with weak goaltending and defense, you can't get too excited about one game.