Leaf’s head coach, Randy Carlyle has a few fans in Toronto.
Even though the Toronto Maple Leafs won 4- 2 over the New Jersey Devils earlier this week, head coach, Randy Carlyle was not too impressed with his team’s play in the first 40 minutes of the game. In fact, he is not satisfied with the progress of the team, despite their recent success. ”We are not satisfied where we are,” he said at the post game press conference.
Nazem Kadri opened the scoring with a weak shot, in which the puck squeaked through Devil’s goalie, Johan Hedberg’s legs and slowly crossed the goal line.
New Jersey came out flying in the second period and went into the third (period) with a 2-1 lead.
The Leafs tied it up early in the third period with an outstanding fore checking play by Jay McClement. He stripped the puck away from New Jersey’s forward, Patrik Elias and shot it towards the goal. Just like Kadri’s goal, the puck went through Hedberg’s legs and in.
At this point, I urged the Leafs on while watching the game on t.v. to shoot more because I knew Hedberg was shaky in goal.
The Leafs did almost exactly what I hoped they would do. They shot at the net more and got their second straight victory.
Toronto got their third straight win two nights later, beating Ottawa 5-4.
There was an incident that happened a little over 30 seconds into the game. Ottawa’s Dave Dziurzyski, who never fought in the NHL, decided to take on Leaf’s player Frazer McLaren. The problem is, McLaren is six foot five, 230 lbs, while Dziurzyski is six foot three, and 204 lbs. As a result, Dziurzyski got knocked out by McLaren and had to helped off the ice.
To be honest, Dziurzyski is not too bright. Up until this point, he never threw the gloves off in the NHL before, yet, the first guy he goes after is half his size. Even Bob McKenzie from TSN television in Canada thought it was ridiculous for Dziurzyski to do something like that.
My advice for Dziurzyski is make sure the person is your weight class before dropping the gloves.
The Leaf’s winning streak came to an end when they lost to Boston 4-2. Surprisingly, Carlyle wasn’t too upset with the results. ”I thought we worked extremely hard,” he said after the game.
Toronto faces Pittsburgh on Saturday. They can’t afford to lose this one.
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