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Leafs lose to rivals Justin Dahan (HV) The Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs, a rivalry like no other. It has stood the test of time since the NHL’s inception in 1917. Another chapter would be added to this heated rivalry on October 7th.
The Montreal Canadiens had just played a game the previous night against the Buffalo Sabres. The Canadiens collapsed in the third period against the Sabres and ended up losing in a shootout.
This game started with both teams exchanging power play goals. Sheldon Souray blasted one of his trademark slap shots from the point that seemed to go through Andrew Raycroft. Darcy Tucker converted a beautiful pass from Kyle Wellwood past David Aebischer. Matt Stajan added a goal in the second period to give the Leafs the lead. He grabbed the puck in a scrum and beat Garth Murray for the goal. Garth Murray was covering for an out of position David Aebischer. The Leafs held the lead until the third period; Mike Johnson notched his first goal as a member of the Montreal Canadiens. Johnson has a penchant for scoring against his former team; he now has nine points in eight career games against the Leafs, four of which are goals.
After three periods both teams were still tied. Overtime provided no goals, although many chances for each teams. Toronto blasted six shots in the overtime most of them came on a power play chance. David Aebischer made many great saves, highlighted by a save on a Mats Sundin's one timer. Montreal only managed one shot but spent most of the overtime killing a penalty. The shot also came on the power play after Darcy Tucker took a penalty late in the overtime period.
There would be a new twist to an old rivalry, never before had these two teams met in a shootout. After three shooters for each team the shootout score remained tied with Chris Higgins scoring for Montreal and Mats Sundin scoring for Toronto . Saku Koivu, Alex Kovalev, Kyle Wellwood, and Darcy Tucker missed for their respective teams. The Leafs choose Alexei Ponikarovsky as there extra shooter, Ponikarovsky came very close to scoring as he rung the puck off the post. Michael Ryder was selected as Montreal ’s extra shooter. Ryder had shot the previous night and did not score, tonight would be different, Ryder came in on his breakaway and snapped hard, accurate shot passed Andrew Raycroft.
Montreal Canadiens fans have a lot to look forward to; it appears Mike Komisarek has found confidence in his game. He was the best defensive defenseman in the game and even chipped in offensively with a couple scoring chances.
The Leafs take a tough loss to a division rival but can take solace in the fact that Andrew Raycroft looked solid throughout the game making a couple big saves during the game. Most noticeably Saku Koivu who had a great chance to give the Canadiens the lead late in the third but could not get the puck over Raycroft’s pad.
Mike Johnson had this to say about his first goal of the season and for his new hockey team “I always like scoring in Toronto and it was good to get my first goal out of the way.” He also described the goal saying, “It was a little bit of a tricky pick up but anyway they get in, I’ll take it.” He also talked about the importance of the first win of the year, “First win of the year is good for the new group and we battled hard to start the year.” Mike didn’t take all the credit he deferred some to his new line mate Radek Bonk, Johnson had this to say about Bonk, “He’s a smart player good defensively, and easy to read off of” It didn’t take long for Johnson and Bonk to find chemistry as this is just their third time skating together in a game, their first time came in preseason against Ottawa.
*Andrew Wozniewski left the game early in the first with an injury to his shoulder.
*This was Mathieu Dandenault’s 700th career NHL game
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