Leafs, listen up. I know how these rivalry games usually turn out but that sure as hell won't fly Saturday night because I am making the trek to the Bell Centre. Not only am I risking getting stuck because of the end of the world storm that is going to hit Sunday but I am also risking having to take over an entire province if you guys lose. If you only win one game against the Habs decisively then please make it this one. Please build on the momentum/rectify the mistakes from Friday's game and come out and blitz the Habs. The only thing you need to do to beat the Habs is play disciplined hockey. TSN said on Wednesday that they have scored about 42% of their goals with the powerplay. They are exactly who we thought they were at the beginning of the year: a glorified powerplay unit. If you do that you'll be in good shape and I, in contrast, will be in bad shape because celebratory BEvERages can take their toll but that's a price I will willingly pay.
The stats are in the Thrashers' Open Thread so this will just be an inspirational speech. I couldn't risk a speech from a softy like Ghandi for this game since I will be in attendance so I went to one of the most badass speeches of World War II. Seriously, check out the real speech and tell me that doesn't make you want to go beat the Germans in another World War. Here, to inspire the Leafs to a soul-crushing victory in Montreal is General George Patton:
The Leafs are a team. They live, sleep, fight, and eat as a team. This individual hero stuff is a lot of horse shit! The bilious bastards who write that kind of stuff for The Toronto Star don't know any more about real hockey under intense media pressure than they know about fucking! Every single man on the Leafs plays a vital role. Every man has his job to do and must do it. What if every fourth liner decided that he didn't like having to fly into players at top speed, turned yellow and jumped headlong back into the bench? What if every man thought, "They won't miss me, just one in 20?" Where in Hell would we be now? Where would our team, our loved ones, our homes, even the fans, be?
No, thank God, Maple Leafs don't think like that. Every man does his job, serves the whole. Defencemen supply the forwards with passes and maintain the front of the net clear to keep us rolling. Grinders soften up the opposition's defence and create space, for where we're going, there isn't a hell of a lot of room. Every last man on the bench has a job to do, even Raycroft who opens the door to keep line changes rolling!
GO LEAFS GO!!!!
Remember to put your guesses for who will score take the first shot, get the first penalty, and score the first goal in the comments. I'll keep a running tally of the results in the right sidebar. We've doubled the number of participants but no one has been able to rack up many points so join in now before everyone's guessing abilities improve. Join now to get in some practice because I'm thinking of having a competition for a prize after the all-star break with wonderful prizes. No idea what they will be but they'll be awesome.
As always, the comment section is a wonderful place to vent and rage between periods or make hopeful predictions that you can tout in the future if they happen to come to pass. Each period and overtime/shootout gets their own section so just reply to the relevant section's main post and question how the team can look so good one night and so bad the next. Whatever you want to say all that you need to say it is to set up an account to comment so register and share your thoughts.
