Blues vs. Leafs- First Period

By Chris Gift

Good afternoon, and away we go.

It seems that they take hockey pregame shows a hell of a lot more seriously in Canada than they do here in St. Louis.

Leafs TV must have gotten into the video game background music vault for the pregame music. I was waiting for a Castlevania commercial to start.

Start of game: Again, and thankfully, Manny Legace is in the net for the Blues, and if you're watching on Leafs TV, I'm already disliking the font and logo at the top of the screen.

18:43- Backes takes a penalty- they called it holding, I thought it was boarding. The Leaf announcers said the Leafs had the 3rd best powerplay in the league. That's fantastic, three games into the season. After the first game, Walt Tkachuk was on pace for 164 goals.

17:14 Boyes and McDonald are killing penalties. I always felt that the penalty killers last season had little or no chance to score shorthanded goals, these two should help.

16:38- Goal by Toronto. Funny things happen when you don't clear the puck right after killing a penalty. Kaberle from Van Ryn and Antropov. If I have all three of those words spelled write (sic) I'll enter the next spelling bee.

15:07- Through excellent reporting from the Leafs broadcasters (translation: none whatsoever)- I see that Yan Stastny is making his season debut today for the Blues.

14:00- In the battle of the high drafted teenaged rookie defensemen, Luke Schenn beats Alex Pietrangelo by getting his name mentioned first by the play-by-play man.

12:32- Let's see how TJ Oshie plays with Tkachuk (who is being called "Tkachook") and Perron (who they are calling "Perrin") today.

11:24- These five Blues are on the ice at the same time- Jannsen, Stastny, Oshie, Pietrangelo, and McKee. I'd have never guessed that a year ago at this time.

10:36- I like the idea of not being able to go to a TV Time Out after an icing call. During last night's Colorado-Edmonton game, Colorado coach Tony Granato had to take his timeout after 4 consecutive icings. His guys were gassed, with no relief in sight.

9:43- Very one sided game so far. The Blues have yet to have a real good chance, while the Leafs already have a goal.

9:28- Still not crazy about Jay McClement anywhere but on the 4th line.

9:14- Backes lays a big hit. Mayers is on the ice. The Jamal Mayers that we knew would have stuck up for his teammate in an eight man frackas like that was. Mayers gave Tkachuk a stinky glove and that's about it.

Backes and Dominic Moore dropped the gloves, wrestled for a little while and Backes fell on him. Looked like a fight, sounded like a fight and I assumed it was a fight- both players were given 2:00 for roughing.

8:00- For the record, Mr. Mayers holds the Blues record for most games played by someone named Jamal, with 595. Malcolm-Jamal Warner finished tied for second with zero.

7:09- Still not a whole hell of a lot going on in the Leafs' end. Two games and a half of a period in to the third, the Blues haven't done much 5 on 5 yet this season.

6:13- Brewer hit in the shoulder and reacts a la Cosmo Kramer after being spit on by Keith Hernandez.

5:47- Kulemin makes it 2-0. Thirty seconds ago, I had no idea there was a player in the NHL with Kulemin as a last name. But after seeing Nashville 37 times a season, I call tell you about as many Legwands as you'd like. Antropov gets his 2nd helper of the game.

Chris D. Says:
October 13th, 2008 at 11:34 am e

What in the hell is the deal?

I'll be as direct as possible here, man. The Blues are a decent team at home, and not very good on the road. Add the fact that this is an afternoon game and playing in Toronto is a big deal for lots of the players...that adds up to potential disaster.

3:40 Bad play by Pietrangelo- blind pass behind his own net to nobody leads directly to the third goal.

3:12- Jannsen wants to dance, Mayers wants no part of it. I don't blame him.

2:25- Schenn takes a penalty. Maybe he feels bad for Pietrangelo giving it up for the Leafs third goal.

Look at it this way- on Saturday night, it was 4-1 after a period, so I guess this is better. Maybe.