Searching for that elusive first win

By Paul Bruno

The Leafs kick off a five game road trip tonight in Vancouver and to show you how bad it has been over the first seven games, Canada’s National Network is toying with the notion of pulling the Leaf games from the national wide focus of the classic Saturday Night Broadcast of Hockey Night in Canada.

 

There is no more damning condemnation, short of an unsold seat (gasp) at the Air Canada Centre.

The Leafs can’t worry about that off-ice stuff, though. They are being inundated with mathematical projections about having to accumulate this many points in this many games to make the playoffs.

The reality is they ought to be focused on the task at hand. A win in tonight’s game should be their only focus.

They have a shot, too, if only because the Canucks have a couple of injuries, to winger Daniel Sedin and defenseman Sami Salo.

For the Leafs, who brought no fewer than four goalies along on this trip, it will be Joey MacDonald in goal.

It is curious to note, just like last season, Ian White is off to a relatively impressive start on the Leaf defense. He is logging over 20 minutes per game, has 4 points and, perhaps most remarkably has a (+3) during the Leafs’ miserable start.

They are not contemplating any lineup changes for tonight’s game.

We like the way a few of the forwards are competing. Lee Stempniak has been pouring shots on goal (24 in seven games), albeit, with only one goal to show for his efforts. Alexei Ponikarovsky is another winger who is enjoying personal success, with three goals, an assist and a team-high (+5) rating.

That’s pretty much the extent of the good news, unless you count the club’s success in winning most of their fights.

There’s more bad news than good, however.

The veteran crew assembled on defense has got to lead this club. We look for Francois Beauchemin and Mike Komisarek to settle in and help settle down this group. Tomas Kaberle has got to take the power-play up a notch as the special teams will be critical to any success for this club. That unit has clicked at a 20.8% pace, good for 14th in the league.

Another key for the Leafs, and most symptomatic of the club’s poor start, will be the penalty kill situation, where they are allowing goals almost 40% of the time, by far the worst mark in the league.

After a week off, it will be very interesting to see how they come out tonight. Hockey Night in Canada’s national audience will be watching…at least for tonight’s game.

Tags: Alexei Ponikarovsky, Ian White, tomas kaberle, Toronto Maple Leafs