Why did I say “Oh no Fulemin, you take Tuesday, I’ll get Wednesday”.

Stupid seldo.

Yes hello out there, I apologize in advance being the one recapping this game, but it’s been a while you know, and I can’t slack off and leave it to all the others.

Let’s get it out of the way right now. TL;DR version:

Columbus owned this game. They made the little moves, the stick work, the battles, the pestering that they needed to do to keep the Maple Leafs from getting itno any kind of groove.

The Leafs had their moments, but they were few and far between.

Marner slid into the boards after running at a jacket and either getting pushed away, or missing completely. He’d be in and out of the game from there on out.

Kadri had two goals, one was a deflection of a Leivo shot.

Here’s Goal #2:

The Leafs were taking too many penalties tonight as well, not very good ones either.

Columbus was up 4-0 before the Leafs scored, goal 5 was an empty net.

Their first goal involved shoving McElhinney into the net, but it was ruled valid after a review:

Goal #2:

Goal #3:

Goal #4:

Sigh.

The Leafs host Ottawa on Saturday.

Now, onto my tomfoolery.

Since I always seem to recap the blah games, I wanted to have some fun tonight. So I picked out the big moments from the game and screen capped them and did a little telestratoring to them. (You’re going to hate this r/leafs)

Leo almost scores right at the front stoop  of the goal, good goalie move, rebound goes out, no goal:

Josh Anderson skates into Curtis McElhinney as Matt Hunwick pursues him. Anderson gets the puck under the pad but keeps going and shoves McElhinney into the net. The goal is immediately reviewed, but is ruled valid. I disagree, but I’m sitting next to a fish bowl that needs cleaning, not in the NHL offices

Leo again. The puck comes off the faceoff to Kadri who passes it to Nylander, who send sit to Leo who again is in Joonas Korpisalo’s face, but again he makes the save.

The Leafs are in Columbus’ end, the puck goes back to Hunwick who tries to pass to Polak, misses. William Karlsson catches the puck, passes it up to Anderson and off Anderson goes. Hunwick barely catches up to Anderson, when McElhinney makes a poke check to stop the shooting attempt.

In the Leafs end, Morgan Rielly and Nikita Zaitsev mes sup some behind the net play, no one covers the point, and it gets passed around by the Jackets until it gets to Boone Jenner who scores the second goal of the game.

The Leafs are being outplayed into the second period, but when they do get into the Jackets end, they make some nice shots, but the either end up getting saved, or they just miss the net, like the Matthews shot below.

At the start of the second, there’s a very nice play from Columbus, when Brandon Saad sneaks the puck off Kadri, passes it up to Bjorkstrand, who skates in alone to the net and scores goal number three.

Zaitsev takes an interference call after misreading a play and letting the puck get by him.

This gives the Jackets a power play, where Nick Foligno scores on a heavily screened wrist shot. 4-0 Columbus.

Marner looks like he’s trying to make a hit on someone coming into the Leafs end, but he either gets pushed off or misses (I can’t tell on replays), and ends up sliding into the boards. He’d go in and out of the dressing room for the rest of the game. Hopefully it’s nothing serious.

As the second is coming to a close, the Leafs are in the Jackets end, when in a scramble, the puck pinballs around and Nazem Kadri puts it away to get the Leafs on the board.

In the third, Josh Leivo comes around the net and takes a shot from the side, which ricochets off Kadri’s knee and into the net for the Leafs second goal of the game.

The Maple Leafs picked things up and started pressuring the Jackets, Kadri grabbed a loose puck and tried to complete the hat trick, but was denied by the very hot Korpisalo. Man, who had his job for the Jackets to start the season?

The Leafs get a powerplay near the end, and with under three minutes left the pull McElhinney for a 6 on 4 advantage. They can’t make use of it, and after the penalty expires Matt Calvert clears the puck out of the Jackets end, and it makes it into the back of the net. Once again, puck and Leafs net are reunited.

After a wild and crazy Valentines Day win, the Leafs come out like they used up all the energy then. They’ve acknowledged the slow starts are an issue, but they’ll need to work on them quick, as the compressed schedule for the remainder of the season won’t give them much free time to fool around and learn on the fly.

Final score: Columbus Blue Jackets 5 - Toronto Maple Leafs 2.

The Senators come to town Saturday night. Hopefully they get the hang of scoring the first goal by then.

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