During the Leafs’ 6-2 shellacking of the Caps Saturday, Alex Ovechkin and Leo Komarov were at each other’s throats. Late in the third period, the Russian machine appeared to finally exact some revenge.
Pic by Ian Oland, who I am told wore pants today for the first time in a week.
I don’t wanna write about this junk.
Bad bounces and bad mistakes made the Caps’ road game against to Toronto Maple Leafs a torrid swamp of chumpswargle hockey. I made that word up.
It started innocently enough with a freak bounce of a goal by Morgan Rielly, but then Cody Franson got a sneaky shot from the outside during a Leafs power play to close out the first period.
Holtby took the net for the second and got punctured just 23 seconds in after a turnover by the Carlson-Orpik pairing. Troy Brouwer gave us a glimmer of hope with a hardworking PPG from the slot, but the Leafs answered back like .005 seconds later when freaking David freaking Carlson freaking scored. Tyler Bozak scored his second of the night on a power-play late in the second.
Justin Peters returned to the net in the third, because, why not? Tom Wilson put the biscuit in the basket, making this something less of an abject failure and more of a stupefying bummer. And then Lupul made it an abject failure again. What the heck even is this team?
Oh god it burns. Leafs beat Caps 6-2.
By Peter Hassett 8 years ago
Before the drop of the puck Saturday night, the Toronto Maple Leafs hosted a stirring tribute to former coach Pat Quinn. Quinn, the second-winningest coach in Leafs’ history, died Sunday night in Vancouver after a long illness. He was 71.
The manic, gum-chewing disciplinarian coached the Leafs from 1998 to 2006 and took Toronto to the playoffs every year but his last. The Leafs went to the conference finals twice during his tenure. With Mats Sundin and Curtis Joseph, the team were always contenders in the East.
“Pat was exceptional,” said Barry Trotz to CSN Washington during intermission. “He had great presence and he commanded respect.”
The Leafs pulled out all the stops for the man who both played for the team and rooted for them growing up.
I really thought this dude would be gone by now.
The Caps have gone from playing the single worst team in the league, Buffalo, to one of the best, the Islanders, back to one of the worst, the Toronto Maple Leafs. Though they’ve got a better record than the Caps, that poor hockey club just cannot get its act together. Tonight at 7 PM on CSN and NHL Network, the Caps will play visitor to the Leafs.
This is one of those “don’t play down to a lesser opponent” situations. This is also one of those situations where you guys tell me “we are what our record says we are” and I roll my eyes.
| Team | Record | Possession | PDO | Power Play | Penalty Kill |
| Washington Capitals | 10-8-4 | 52.0% | 98.2 | 28.6% | 80.6% |
| Toronto Maple Leafs | 11-8-3 | 47.8% | 100.4 | 18.5% | 84.2% |
By Peter Hassett 8 years ago
