Awww. Isn’t that adorable. Well, now that you’re in a good mood@@@alet me tell you about this hockey game.

Coming into this game the Maple Leafs were still carrying two teams worth of players, one for tonight, and one for tomorrow night in Hamilton against the Detroit Red Wings. This glut of players means not everyone has had a chance to gel yet, and starting goalie Frederik Andersen has only played 40 minutes of pre-season hockey, back from his injury in Denmark’s Olympic qualifying game.

Andrew Shaw kicked things off early, scoring less than two minutes into the game, setting the tone of “the Canadiens are winning”. for the night. Shaw came in tight around the net, while Andersen left things wide open, doing a neat spinning on one leg move, but his thin stick wasn’t much of a cover for the net.

A few minutes later Michael McCarron scored with a light wrist shot from above the faceoff circles, and the Habs were up 2-0.

Nylander is doing this thing where he won’t pass to an open guy, and he goes for some fancy doomed pass to the guy he likes better or something. He’s got to start passing to whoever is there. - Katya

The feeling of the game wasn’t one of late pre-season, where the rosters are set and everyone is working things out. This was more of an early pre-season game, everyone's everywhere, people are trying fancy shit, and the other team, who are on their final pre-season game with pretty much their final line up, are trying to win the game like it’s the regular season.

The highlight of the first period and the game overall, was Auston Matthews scoring his first goal in a Maple Leafs uniform:

Matthews on the power play, from above the dot, a nice clean shot. First goal, against Carey Price. Hopefully the first of many more of those are to come.

Maybe I’m being a little harsh, with the 6-1 score in my head, not everyone was terrible, and the pairing of Gardiner and Carrick was probably the best defensive about the team tonight. Mitch Marner was good. Matt Hunwick, not so much, he was a very good screen for the Canadiens though. Zaitsev showed flashes of what he can do, for example here:

I don’t need to do play by play for you of every goal, you can see the highlights here at NHL.com, but after the first two goals, Shaw scored again, then Weber, Galchenyuk, and Lehkonen. None were garbage goals, hell Weber scored from the blueline. The Habs played very, very, very well tonight, and I think we’ll be seeing more 14/15 Habs than 15/16.

What this game can bring to the forefront of everyone's minds is how fresh many of these players are. Yes, they’re talented, yes they’re skilled, but they still have some growing and learning to do. Andersen has some rust to shake off after his injury. The beginning of the season may not be as beautiful and easy to watch as we all hoped over the summer. It will come though. The foundation is poured, the framework is there, now we watch them fill in the rest.

Check out the Habs point of view over at Eyes on the Prize.

Tomorrow night the Maple Leafs host the Red Wings in Hamilton, and the final pre-season game is in Detroit on Saturday night.

The regular season opener is in Ottawa on Wednesday, October 12th.

Game Coverage