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Centennial celebrations + Leafs send Bruins into hibernation

October 17, 2016, 11:01 AM ET [460 Comments]
Lucas Neilson
Blogger •Atlantic Division Writer • RSSArchiveCONTACT
After years and years of honoring jersey numbers, the Maple Leafs finally stepped up to the plate and decided to retire jersey numbers. Honestly, it’s about time, I really don’t understand why they went another route than every other National Hockey League team.

Maple Leafs President Brendan Shanahan and Maple Leafs great Dave Keon had kept the secret all summer, not many people knew about the direction Toronto was going to take with retiring of the numbers. Toronto forward James van Riemsdyk was actually contacted during the summer, and was told he will have to change his number and was sworn to secrecy. JVR chuckled that he couldn’t even tell his parents when asked about the number change.

Van Riemsdyk was listed in the top 100 greatest Leafs of all time, right on 100. Thankfully for James he has more time in the blue and white to make his way up the list. Scoring a goal versus the Bruins on Saturday night for the Leafs in the home opener was a good start to his journey upwards.

Yet another bold, solid move by Brendan Shanahan, moving the franchise forward with retiring numbers as they should have been years ago. The players were caught off guard with this honoring; you could see it in their face when Shanahan announced their game plan to retire the numbers.

“No one saw this coming,” said Leafs legend Wendel Clark. “None of us, we had no idea. This is the greatest honour you can get as a hockey player.”

The centennial celebrations have kicked off with a great start. I for one was very happy to see 91-year-old Johnny Bower finally have his number retired by the Toronto Maple Leafs, he truly is a big part of Leafs Nation and it gives me goose bumps knowing Bower’s number 1 will forever be honored by the Leafs of now and the future.

Each member of alumni who’s number was retired were given alumni jackets and each player had a video which documented their accomplishments throughout their NHL journey. At the end of the video is when the cat came out of the hat as the narrator said “all of the honored numbers would now be retired, never to be worn by another Maple Leafs player again.”

Doug Gilmour looked at Clark with a puzzled yet enlightened face and said “what the *^# just happened? They’re doing what?” Obviously Dougie was surprised, and very happy with the franchise’s decision.

The Leafs got off to a quick start when Connor Brown banged in a rebound over Khudobin’s shoulder, great to see Brown bang one in as he is great at finding ways to put the puck in the net.

Nazem Kadri and David Backes squared off with a knuckle bruiser as they both exchanged a few punches, nothing too serious but always great to see. Kadri actually held his own quite well against the dirt bag Backes who weighs at least 30 pounds more. It won’t be long before Kadri find the back of the net for the Maple Leafs as they are rolling their lines efficiently through the first two games of the season.

After a couple power plays and a penalty kill the Mitch Marner snipe show happened as the youngster buried his first NHL goal. He ripped a laser coming in on a 1 on 1 and celebrated like any 19 year old would do, leg down, multiple fist pumps and a jump into the boards. Gotta love it! The kids are playing so well and it’s refreshing to see such excitement and joy watching the young Leafs. It was a matter of time before Marner buried one; he’s been all over the ice in the first two games for Toronto.

JVR must have been sour that he missed the goal scoring party, he had a nice deke in tight, toot he puck to his backhand and with a screen in place put the puck where it needed to be.

Leafs are up 3-0. Heatin’ up!

David Pastrnak buried one for the Bruins and the exciting first period was over with the Leafs in a comfortable lead. Never too comfortable though when we are versus the Bruins…

Thankfully for the Leafs they were able to fight of the Bruins and Milan Michalek finished her off with a goal in the third period.

Frederik Andersen looked shaky in the first game versus Ottawa, but was much more square to the shot and played a much more confident game for the Leafs. Look for him to continue to shine as the Leafs push forward with their young squad.

The stand out in this game was without a doubt Mitch Marner.

This kid is going to be something else, a legit superstar in the making.

Nikita Zaitsev was also worth noting as he had the second most ice time for any Maple Leafs player and has fit in excellent thus far. What a steal he has turned out to be from the KHL. Spending zero assets on a top four defenceman is huge, great work by Shanahan and the brass persuading Zaitsev to join the blue and white.

Toronto’s 1-0-1 is a quality start, and the Leafs will be back at it this week with three more games. Wednesday versus the Jets in Winnipeg, Thursday versus the Wild in Minnesota and Saturday versus the Blackhawks in Chicago.

Thanks for reading, have a great week.
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