The Story
The Leafs opened the scoring, continued the scoring, and closed the scoring as James Reimer posted his fourth shutout of the short season. Leo Komarov, Clarke MacArthur, Phil Kessel from Nazem Kadri, Phil Kessel from Nazem Kadri. Then they took their foot off the gas and let Reimer carry the team through to the end.
The Game in Six
The Leafs put up all four goals before the 25 minute mark, then put at most four shots against Jakob Markstrom for the rest of the game, while Florida combined for 29 in the second and third. They really made Reimer earn the shutout, but he got both the SO and the W.
Kadri played with Kessel, as Tyler Bozak was sat for some recovery time, and boy was their 2-on-1 pretty. Carlyle worked to get them as few defensive zone faceoffs as possible, and Kessel put up two goals. Granted it was against Florida, but hey - it's fun to see the ideas kicked around on this site not only put into practice, but look pretty damn good while doing it.
If you missed it, a brawl ensued with under two minutes to play in the second, and as Markstrom made a move to join the fray, Reimer was already up to his own blue line. While it would've been horrifically stupid for our previously concussed starting goaltender to get in a fight, it was also pretty cool to see him standing at the blue line staring Markstrom down for an old fashioned goalie fight. Fraser would get a 10 minute misconduct, which Phaneuf would match later in the game.
The Leafs can fall to sixth if they lose against the Habs Saturday night and Ottawa wins both their games, and thanks to the Jets getting themselves eliminated by Montreal last night, the Leafs cannot take home ice advantage. in the first round.
Given the misconducts, the radical score effects, and the final score, I'm not sure how useful the usual footer would be, but hey: knock yourself out.
