[BE-LEAF-ABLE]

The Leafs return home to face the New York Rangers after beating the Blue Jackets 4-2 the night before.

Michael Peca scored what turned out to be the Game-winning goal (and his first as a Toronto Maple Leaf) in his 700th Career NHL Game.

"It feels good to score, especially the first one of the season. You don't want to go too long without getting it. I feel very comfortable."

Kyle Wellwood continued his great start to the season, notching a goal and an assist to lead the team with 10 points in 8 games.

Toronto's strategy about "speed in the right places" has so far proven to be successful on the most part when it comes to offence. Defencively, the team is working on cutting down on the amount of scrambles in the crease and in front of Raycroft, and on taking less penalties when doing so.

The Leafs shut down Columbus' main offencive weapons for the most part, keeping forwards Rick Nash, Nikolai Zherdev, Fredrik Modin, and Anson Carter all off the scoresheet.

The New York Rangers have struggled thus far this season. Despite Jaromir Jagr's 11 points (9 assists) and Brendan Shanahan's 7 goals, the team is only posting a 3-4-0 record after 7 games. Calder Trophy Finalist, Henrik Lundqvist, has been less than stellar in the early goings of the season, posting a 3.49 Goals against Average, and a .880 Save Percentage. Well off of the 2.24 Goals Against and 9.22 Save Percentage he had last year.

They were shutout 3-0 in their last game to the Minnesota Wild Wednesday night.

"Due to the integration of some key people to our lineup and trying to continue to re-define ourselves, you're going to suffer growing pains and every team goes through what we're going through and hopefully that's it for us this year. We certainly want to get it back on track as quickly as possible."

The Leafs are 4-2-2 after 8 games.




The Rangers should be a tougher team to handle, especially with Shanahan being added in. It gives Jagr more room out there, that's for sure. And Lundqvist can really get going when he's on his game. The problem isn't scoring goals for the Rangers, it's keeping them out, and if Lundqvist keeps them out, Toronto will be in trouble... unless Raycroft is up to the task.

"I like Toronto, I like the way they recovered very nicely from their opening game against Ottawa. They made a huge statement for themselves that whenever they step on the banana peel going forward, which they did last night, that they can recover quickly from that. We have to be very cognizant of that and recognize that if we don't come back with an A-plus game that we're in for a long night in Toronto.

So we want to make sure if anyone has a long night it's the Maple Leafs."

 

[Havlat]

I sure hope they lose (fingers crossed).

 

[imported_shookem]

I sure hope they lose (fingers crossed).

And I sure hope they win.

Maybe we'll both get what win want and the Leafs will win the game but loose another defensemen?

 

[BE-LEAF-ABLE]

Well... Toronto lost. They got naother point, but Shanahan won the Shootout for the Rangers.

So the leaf's shootout woes continue. Not only that, but they stil haven't been able to string together 2 wins this season yet.

It will come eventually though, I'm sure.

Alexei Ponikarovsky played a strong game, along with Darcy Tucker, but Jagr and Shanahan proved too much in the end.

Poni looks like he may have another great year, and Tucker looks like he could come close to 30 goals aagin. 7 goals in 9 games, and playing very well on that top line with Mats and Welly.

Raycroft played okay, but could have done better. Toronto out-shot the Rangers 38-28, so I guess there's another good thing that continued. It's more about keeping it out of their own goal now.

I really hope Colaiacovo and Kubina return soon.

I heard Maurice liked what he saw from Brenden Bell though, so who knows how things will go when Cola gets back... will he really still have a spot remaining? I odn't know, right now he's on the Marlies.

I really don't like Wade Belak. He hurts the team way too much.

 

[Leafer4Life]

I'm a bit late commenting on this but anyway here goes. We were lucky to get the point, after being outplayed for most of that game. I had a bad feeling as soon as it went to a shootout, we're terrible at those. Raycroft did great in it, can't blame him, the other guys just couldn't score to help him out. Darn shootout.

 

[BE-LEAF-ABLE]

Hey, Leafer4Life. Good to see you here!

 

[Leafer4Life]

Hey, Leafer4Life. Good to see you here!

Thanks!