Results tagged “buffalosabres”

Far be it from us to conflate professional sports with Bill Shakespeare—but the Toronto Maple Leafs’ actions before, during and after Tuesday's NHL trade deadline recall Macbeth’s famous words: full of sound and fury, yet ultimately signifying nothing. Charges of heresy will be duly acknowledged.

One month into the new NHL season, and this much is obvious: the Toronto Maple Leafs are a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, dressed in the league’s silly new jerseys. The Leafs are scoring more often than your younger sister, but they’re also leaking goals at a potentially historic rate. They’ve lost two games by 7–1 final scores, but they’ve also got an 8–1 win and consecutive 4–1 road victories against consensus preseason favourites (Pittsburgh and the New York Rangers). The result is that the Maple Leafs are one of the most entertaining teams in the league, even if they’re seemingly hell-bent on driving their doggedly loyal fans to drink.

Bad news if you're a lacrosse fan: the 2008 National Lacrosse League season has been cancelled. Pick your joke: 1) "I'm sure all three of you are very disappointed"; 2) "Players are refusing to play until they get reimbursed for their bus tickets"; 3) "My God, this is the national sport we're talking about here! Why isn't Stephen Harper doing something, for the love of God?"; 4) "So, why are the Toronto Rock still offering season tickets for sale on their website?"

Once a month Torontoist would like to encourage you to drag yourself off the couch and across the room to that nice, comfy swivel chair in front of your computer, to experience something from the wonderful world of streaming. Anyone who's visited YouTube or eBaum's World knows how gratifying watching two Asian kids lipsynch to Jessica Simpson can be! So in the interest of expanding your horizons (or at least giving you some way to kill time at the office without actually having to do any work), we'll find some interesting, funny, or just plain stupid and entertaining way to amuse yourself with your computer (without the need for pornography).

Nope, Torontoist isn't referring to the classic movie series. With Halloween just around the corner, it's a different goalie mask creating this sequence of horrors. Although it may be Friday the 27th, the number 13 represents the total amount of goals Toronto Maple Leaf netminders - mainly Andrew Raycroft - have allowed to Ottawa Senator shooters this week. Even by factoring in his day off in between, Raycroft's goals against average over those 3 days would still put him near the bottom of the NHL. Now Torontoist has been quick to jump to conclusions in the past. Granted the Leafs were off to a rather decent start this season, and it was Raycroft who was indeed leading the way. However, Tuesday's 6-2 and Thursday's 7-2 losses to their provincial rivals are an all too familiar occurance over the past couple of seasons, and surely have to serve as a reality check for Paul Maurice's club.

With all the personnel changes the Maple Leafs made this offseason, it appears little has infact changed on the ice. With the team opening their 2006-07 pre-season against the Buffalo Sabres at the ACC Monday night, it was the same old story for Mats Sundin's team. Excessive penalties, an inability to score, a bleeding Darcy Tucker, average goaltending and Bryan McCabe's goatee each contributed to a performance that was all too familiar to post-lockout Leaf fans. Even with their unsightly new uniforms, the Sabres had no problem picking up where they left off last season. After dominating the Leafs head-to-head in 05-06, the Sabres scored all of their goals on the powerplay, while Martin Biron turned aside twenty-three Toronto shots in the 4-0 victory. Three of those Sabre goals came during a stretch of the second period in which the Leafs committed six consecutive penalties. All-in-all, it was a dissappointing start to what fans had hoped would be a more satisfying season. The team now travels to Ottawa to play the Senators tomorrow night.