STARS PLAY WITH BIG D AND O

Aren’t the Toronto Maple Leafs such a nice team and how they gift wrapped a victory for the Dallas Stars? And how the Leafs jerk around their fan base by giving the gift to the Stars at the Air Canada Centre in front 19 000 plus fans, and also how the Leafs get their fans’ hopes up, but then play a dud of a game the next night?

The goal challenged Stars got quite the gift from the Leafs, as Toronto played horribly and gave up eight goals, or handed them to Dallas on a silver platter. The Toronto players were in such a gift giving mood, that they decided to let the Dallas players skate around and score easy goals.

Even Vesa Toskala was in a cheery mood, especially in the second period when he let out huge rebounds for the Dallas players to improve their stats.

In exchange for those eight goals, the Dallas players decided to give something back, but not a whole lot, in the form of two goals. The Stars were smart enough to realize that they were playing a hockey game, not in some sort of charity event, even though they were given charity.

This game was ugly right off the bat, as the Leafs surrendered four first period goals.

The first goal pretty much set the tempo of the game, and the Dallas players decided they were going to drive the net, and the Leafs weren’t allowed to defend. That is exactly what happened on the first goal, as the Stars were able to rush the net, and scored off the rebound.

Toronto’s invisible defense was magnified on the play, as Jeremy Williams stood around on the play and allowed goal scorer and hometown player James Neal go to the net.

That goal was the first of three on the night for James Neal, who recorded his first career hat-trick.

On the second Dallas goal, it was Tomas Kaberle who was at fault for the goal. He didn’t clear the puck around the boards properly, only to have it stopped, and let Steve Ott go to the net. Where he accepted a beautiful pass from Mike Ribeiro, and had an easy goal.

It was 2-0 in a matter of time, and the Leafs really had nothing going for them. They showed no speed, no hustle, no determination, no energy, and were just out played badly. Toronto couldn’t even get a decent first pass out of the zone, and if they did, a Dallas player would be waiting in the neutral zone.

Then the game got ugly and quick, and Toronto got burned big time on the third Dallas goal. This one hurt because Fabian Brunnstrom scored the goal, and made it look easy, on a relatively difficult play. Brunnstrom was a player that Toronto actively pursued in the off-season, but lost out.

Steve Ott made a great drop pass to Brunnstrom, and Ott was able to suck in two defencemen towards him, which sprung Brunnstrom free. The play Brunnstrom made was fantastic, as he cut down the wing towards the net, and kicked away Jeff Finger’s stick, got by Toskala’s weak poke check effort, and slid the puck home.

Then to pretty much win the game in the first period, the Stars added a power play goal on a one-timer from the point by Brad Richards. That was shot was perfectly placed, as it was nice and low to the ice through traffic.

From then on, the Stars played a 1-4 system, and Toronto couldn’t do too much to maneuver around it, because they were mentally and physically out of the game. The Leafs players weren’t moving their feet, and it didn’t help either with Toskala letting out huge rebounds.

The Stars added three more goals to their lead to make it 7-0, before Jason Blake scored one for the Leafs.

Toskala was also pulled from the game in favor of Curtis Joseph, who did a good job in relief and allowed only one goal.

Everyone in the building knew the Leafs players wanted the game to end, and just stood around in the defensive zone, and Dallas scored three easy goals.

The first came off a bad rebound let out by Toskala on a bad angle shot, and the next goal was scored on a really sad defensive effort on which the Leafs reaction time was real slow. Oh yeah, that goal was also scored off a rebound. The third goal was just complete domination by the Stars, and Toskala looked real lost in net, and did even try to stop the puck or make it look as if he gave it an effort.

At that point, the Leafs were out shot 27-9, and 37-22 on the game. According to the official scorers of the game, it read the Leafs had only one shot on goal at about the twelve minute mark of the first period.

The third period was just some boring hockey, Dallas had the game all locked up, and the Leafs fans were beyond restless. The two teams did exchange goals in the third, and there was a scrap between Andre Deveaux and Krystopher Barch, which was their second of the game. On the second Toronto goal, Andre Deveaux picked up his first career NHL point with an assist.

With the loss, Toronto had a slim score sheet and Nik Antropov’s four game point scoring streak was snapped. On the other hand, Dallas’ was full and sixteen different players picked up at least a point, which included Marty Turco, and had seven multiple point scorers.


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