Okay, now that was not the game I expected to see. One team (the Montreal Canadiens) is being touted as a favorite for winning the Stanley Cup at the end of the season, and the other (the Toronto Maple Leafs) were picked for dead last when the season began. The Montreal Canadiens had beaten the Toronto Maple Leafs 5 times in their last 7 matches, winning 3 of the last four games played in Toronto. The Leafs prevailed in a rough affair, outscoring Montreal 6-3. The two teams were playing oldtime hockey, with a quite a bit of the dirty play on both sides.
After the Canadiens completely dominated the Leafs 6-1 in their first meeting this year as the Habs got off to a great start in their 100th year in the NHL. Last night's game should be a wake up call for the Canadiens, that this will not be a cake walk to Lord Stanley's Mug. The youngsters from Toronto outplayed and more importantly, outskated the Canadiens all through the game and the results showed on the scoreboard.
The game was a little chippy and I expect the next game will be quite a battle. Montreal's Tom Kostopoulos kicked things off by smashing Mike Van Ryn into the end boards from behind. Van Ryn received a cut to his forehead and was lying on the ice for a few minutes. He was taken from the Leafs' dressing room to hospital in a neck brace on a stretcher. He's expected to miss a month according to early reports. Carlo Colaiacovo jumped into Kostopoulos in defense of his fallen teammate and received a 2 minute penalty for roughing. Kostopoulos received a 5 minute penalty for boarding and a game misconduct. the Leafs couldn't score on the ensuing 5-minute power play and it was nullified when the Leafs took a penalty for too many men on the ice.
Andrei Kostitsyn Penaltized For Tripping Steen
Andrei Kostitsyn received a 2 minute penalty for tripping Toronto's star rookie defenseman Alex Steen at 17:25. It looked to me that Kostitsyn was trying to deliberately injure Steen as they raced after the puck as Kostitsyn used his stick to knock Steen's foot out from under him causing him to fall and slam hard into the end boards.
Grabovski Got Under Habs Skin
Mikhail Grabovski, traded from Montreal to Toronto in the off-season really caused some havoc. You could tell he wanted to prove to his former team that they gave up on him too soon and he hurt them by scoring a goal and getting an assist on teammate Niklas Hagman's goal that opened scoring in the first period. Grabovski scored his 7th goal of the season at 1:48 into the 2nd period to give the Leafs a 2-0 lead, before the Habs came back with power play goals from Robert Lang and Tomas Plekanec to tie the game.
Actually, the Leafs received 3 goaltender interference penalties early in the second period: Grabovski at 4:07, Dominic Moore at 6:54 and Jason Blake at 9:19, so you can imagine why the Habs were so hot.
Then Hagman scored a power play marker of his own, before Saku Koivu tied it at 3-3 a little over a minute later. Nik Andropov scored with about 3 minutes left in the second period to put the Leafs ahead to stay and the Leafs scored 2 more in the third to put the game out of reach.
Grabovski was a big target for the Habs all night and was causing problems for the Canadiens' goalie Carey Price. Grabovski received his goaltender interference penalty after pushing Price out of his crease while Price was down after making a save. Later, Price gave him a couple shots to Grabovski's back to try to move him out of his sightlines, and Grabovski stupidly gave Price a buttend to the "nether regions" which caused the rest of the Montreal players to try to hit Grabovski all night. Koivu slammed him into the boards and stood over him glaring down and providing Grabovski some choice words.
Sergei Kostitsyn Freaks Out
Montreal's Sergei Kostitsyn (who is from the same town in Russia, along with his teammate, brother Andrei) rushed at Grabovski knocking him to the ice while he didn't have the puck in the Leaf's end and received a charging penalty. Grabovski and Kostitsyn were jawing at each other in Russian (and I don't think they were talking about the sights in their hometown). Kostitsyn kept trying to get at Grabovski and the linesman was having a difficult time restraining him and guiding him to the dressing room, because Kostitsyn received a game misconduct. Habs coach Guy Carbonneau was yelling at Kostitsyn and pointing at the dressing room for him to leave the ice.
Andropov Gets 3 Points
Nik Andropov had a good game, scoring once (game winner) and setting up 2 more. Alex Tanguay led Montreal players with one goal and an assist.
Leafs Win Round 2...
That was a really good game. Lots of hits, lots of goals and it sets up the next meeting for the two teams which unfortunately won't be til January. But, with this loss, Montreal falls out of 1st place in the division to 3rd place just 2 points up on Toronto. The Habs were thought to be running away with the division after their great start, but now trail both the Boston Bruins and Buffalo Sabres after last night's play. The Leafs were giant killers and this young team is starting to look like they might be better than everyone gave them credit for.
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