Toronto Maple Leafs Fight Off Devils for 3-0 Victory

Written By: Mark “The Hard Hitter” Ritter

To all you Toronto Maple Leaf haters that refused to buy in to what Leafs general manager Brian Burke was selling after the big trade that brought the likes Dion Phaneuf, Fredrick Sjostrom, and J.S. Giguere to Toronto I say, how you like them Leafs now?

Coming into Tuesday night’s game, the New Jersey Devils had a record of 35-17-2, comparatively, the Leafs boasted a record of 17-28-11. To call these two teams polar opposites would be very fair, to expect the Leafs to end up on the short end of the stick on Tuesday night, almost a certainty.

Lucky for the fans of the Blue and White, Brian Burke’s new soldiers played some great hockey, with Phaneuf leading the way with his patented hard nosed, hard hitting hockey.

Sjostrom, another Calgary Flames castoff, made a huge impact early on in the first period when he shot the puck at the net which resulted in a rebound that Nikolai Kulemin deposited behind Devils goaltender Yann Danis.

Known for his defensive abilities, it was nice to see Sjostrom turning over a “new leaf,”creating some offense, as a member of the Blue and White.

Shortly thereafter the game got a little rough, when Phaneuf laid a tremendous hit on New Jersey Devils star forward Zach Parise, sending him flying, which had Leaf fans on their feet and Devils defenseman Colin White steaming mad.

White made a valiant effort to eek out some revenge from Phaneuf by engaging in a fight with Phaneuf, but he was unable to make Phaneuf pay for taking liberties with the Devils star as both players wrestled briefly, but didn’t land any hay-makers.

Sporting his familiar Anaheim Ducks mask, J.S. Giguere played a solid, if not spectacular game between the pipes, stopping all 30 New Jersey shots and elevating his teammates confidence in him and themselves in the process.

Giguere rarely gave up any rebounds and looked big in the net all night. His mobility was on display on more than a few occasions, as was his ability to make the big/timely save.

Phil Kessel, who has struggled of late, scored his 18th goal of the season at 4:40 of the second period, giving the Leafs a 2-0 lead. Alex Ponikarovsky and Tyler Bozak assisted on the play.

The puck seemed to follow Kessel all night and the line of Kessel, Bozak and Poni seemed to be engaged in the play all night long. Hopefully, going forward this trio can continue to find some chemistry. The Leafs need offense, a solid number one line would pay huge dividends to the Leafs.

Defenseman Francois Beauchemin added to the Leafs lead when at 14:09 of the second period, he capitalized on a Leafs power play, beating Danis with a slap shot. Beauchemin’s goal marked the fifth time he has scored for the Leafs this season, four of which have come on the power play.

The third period would see the Devils outshoot the Leafs 12-5, but the Devils would fail to beat Giguere and the Leafs as they held on for a 3-0 victory over one of the best clubs in the entire NHL.

As fate would have it, Giguere would get first star honors, with Phaneuf getting the nod as the second star and Sjostrom rounding out the sweep with his third star selection.

Leafs GM Brian Burke had to be happy with all three of his new acquisitions and, more importantly, with his entire teams effort. The Leafs win against the Devils was a breath of fresh air, a solid defensive effort which saw the Leafs play a very tough, yet extremely disciplined brand of hockey.

Up next, the Leafs will travel to New Jersey to take on the Devils on Friday night, a game in which it is expected goaltender Martin Brodeur will make a start. Brodeur will be tough to beat, but if the Leafs play the same type of game as they did tonight they will give themselves an opportunity to be victorious, something they have struggled to do consistently all season long.

Who knows what the future brings for Burke’s threesome, but, for one night at least, it was all but perfect...

Until next time,

Peace!