It was a titanic struggle between evenly matched foes last night in Raleigh-Durham, NC after which the victor could claim the possible ascendancy to 28th place in the NHL standings and the vanquished would take the lead in the first furlong of the Taylor Hall sweepstakes. It may be that some of their older veterans like Rod Brind’Amour have finally hit the wall or the team misses their star Eric Staal that much, but the Carolina Hurricanes do not resemble the team that defeated the Devils and Bruins in last year’s playoffs and only to lose in the conference finals to the eventual Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Leafs resorted to their normal practice of yielding the first goal of the game, a first period tally by rookie Brandon Sutter. Late in the period, goalie Jonas Gustavsson gave up a juicy rebound off a long point shot, right to Sergei Samsonov who wristed it by the helpless goalie. In the 2nd period, the Leafs got back into the game with an early goal by John Mitchell. The one-timer was Mitchell’s first of the year, thus making Coach Ron Wilson’s move of placing him between top line wingers Phil Kessel and Jason Blake look astute. At the 7:23 mark, Nikolai Kulemin went to the front of the net and tipped a pass from Alexei Ponikarovsky past Cam Ward to tie the game at 2-2. From that point, it became the “Monster” show, who made a number of great saves to keep the game tied. The Hurricanes buzzed around the Leafs throughout the entire third period, outshooting the Leafs 18-8, but Gustavsson was able to keep the puck from tickling the twine. Midway through the third period on a power play, Lee Stempniak unleashed a point shot that Cam Ward managed to stop but the rebound came right to Jason Blake, who rang the shot off the short side post and under the cross bar for the winning goal. Ironically, the team’s overall performance last night was not up to the standards of the previous 5 games, in which the Leafs lost 4 games in either overtime or in a shootout, but they managed to get two points mostly due to the performance of their goaltender.

Tonight at the ACC, before the contest with the Detroit Red Wings, the annual Hall of Fame presentation honoring the newest inductees will take place. It is fitting that the schedule makers had the Leafs play the Red Wings tonight, with 3 of the inductees(Steve Yzerman, Luc Robataille and Brett Hull) having played some or all of their careers in Detroit. Also being recognized tonight will be Brian Burke and Ron Wilson’s old coach at Providence College, current New Jersey Devil’s GM Lou Lamariello, along with the best American born defenseman of all time, Brian Leetch and former Ranger and Blues goalie John Davidson in the broadcaster’s category. After his sparkling performance last night, Jonas Gustavsson will get his first back-to-back start tonight and the lineup will remain the same. Chris Osgood is expected to start in net for the Wings.

From the desk of Mike “In Buffalo” Augello

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