Leafs Dominate the Habs

 

 

Last night the Leafs were back in action hosting the Canadiens and coming off a win in Ottawa the night before Toronto was looking to continue their winning ways. Petr Mrazek would get the start in goal for the Leafs and for Montreal they would use this game as an audition to decide who will be the back up behind Jake Allen to start the season. They would give the start to Sam Montembeault, a Waiver claim from the Florida Panthers.

 

The Leafs would start the first period the right way, they started with a lot of energy and started using their speed right away and in the opening thirty seconds Ilya Mikheyev would have two high quality chances turned away. Despite the positive start by the Leafs, it would be the visiting Canadiens who would open the scoring. We would see Ben Chiarot fire a shot from the point that Joel Armia would deflect, the puck would then hit the skate of Leafs defender Mac Hollowell and into the net. With the Leafs trailing thanks to the Armia goal the Leafs would get right back to work looking for their first goal of the game. Midway through period one they would do just that. TJ Brodie would send the puck to Mitch Marner and while he was along the right-wing boards Mitch would show some of his great vision as he would find Nick Ritchie in front of the net all alone, The Orangeville native would tie the game at ones with an easy tap in. Midway through the second Toronto would be on the powerplay as Montreal would be a man down for slashing. Toronto would cash in on the opportunity as Nikita Gusev would center a pass for Nick Ritchie who would collect his second goal of the game giving Toronto the one goal advantage.

In the final five minutes of the period fans would get to see teams trade goals. First Montreal would cash in on a powerplay of their own as Montreal’s Romanov would set up Alex Belzile at the top of the circle would send the puck by a screened Mrazek who saw absolutely nothing, and the game would be level once again this time at 2-2. Leaf fans didn’t need to wait long for their team to pull ahead as just two short minutes later John Tavares and William Nylander would assist Ilya Mikheyev for his of the preseason and the Leafs would lead 3-2 after 20 minutes.

 

Aside from giving up the two Montreal goals Toronto would control the play in the opening period outshooting their opponent 24-7 and Toronto’s dominance would carry over into the second as it would take Montreal fifteen minutes before they even registered a shot in the period. I am jumping a little ahead of myself so lets back track a little because Toronto would add to their lead midway through the period once again on the powerplay. With Joel Armia watching from the sin bin, he along with all the fans would see Tavares work the puck down low along the goal line only to pass to Brennan Mennell who would come strolling down the slot and his wrist shot would beat the Montreal netminder doubling Toronto’s lead 4-2 with Mennel’s first goal of exhibition action.

Alright now before I go any further Semyon Der-Arguchintsev, this is no disrespect to him, but this will probably be the only time I mention his name in full so from here on out any time I have to mention him I will do what every other person does when they refer to him, I will call him SDA because his last name is to difficult to type and spell. So, with that cleared up the Leafs would extend their lead as with just over sixteen minutes played in the frame Curtis Gabriel would slide the puck over to the aforementioned SDA who would skate through the middle of the zone untouched SDA would fire a wrist shot over the glove of Montembeault and the Leafs lead would grow to 5-2.

In the second intermission it was announced that the Leafs had released Josh Ho-Sang from his Professional Tryout but had signed him to a 1-year AHL contract with the Toronto Marlies giving him another opportunity to develop his game, gain more confidence, but also, it’s an opportunity to prove that he has matured as a person and as a player. Captain John Tavares was asked for his thoughts on the announcement, and he seemed genuinely happy that Ho-Sang would remain a member of the Leafs Organization.

Now the final period would open with the Leafs shorthanded early into action as Brett Seney would serve an interference minor and in my opinion we saw one of the nicest goals in quite some time as Seney would step out of the box and Kirill Semyonov would send Seney streaking passed an exhausted Belzile and the London resident would show off some amazing hands as he would go from forehand to backhand and send the puck into the roof of the net giving Toronto a 6-2 lead.

For the remainder of regulation tempers would begin to rise and things would get a little rough as Canadiens prospect Michael Pezzetta would throw a hit on Michael Amadia, a hit that the Leafs would take exception too and Curtis Gabriel would answer the bell as he and Pezzetta would drop the gloves giving Leaf fans another reason to cheer because as I mentioned in an earlier article Gabriel will quickly become a fan favorite in this city if he continuously plays a physical gritty style.

The rest of the period would see time run out and the Leafs would finish the game winning by a score of 6-2 picking up their fourth win in five games. After the game there would be a handful of transactions and pretty well all of them were expected moves as SDA would be joining his Peterborough teammate Nick Robertson on the Marlies, Mac Hollowell was also sent down and Nikita Gusev was released from his PTO meaning he is now free to go anywhere.

Over then next couple days we will likely see more cuts as the Leafs prepare for Saturday night when the Leafs host Ottawa, there final preseason game. 

As always thanks for reading