OK, so I went to the last two games, mostly to keep my mind off of real-life shit. What I saw was an offensively-challenged team scoring 16 goals in two games. They made Johan Hedberg look bad, his backup look like Ears (post-Colorado wipeout), and Curtis Joseph... well, he just looked old.
The Leafs... are gonna have a long season. I almost feel sorry for their fans because clueless management has messed that team up for a while... oh,wait, been there, done that, still recovering. What I didn't get was the Slapshot ending. Ryan Hollweg was skating around trying to hurt people the whole game. What, open-ice hit? No, I can't do that. Guy facing the boards? Perfect target. He took about 5 of those runs at our players, and the refs got it right about 60% of the time. Backes kicked the shit out of him, while Janssen made a valiant effort. Speaking of our local boy, here's the Cam Janssen hat trick: 1 stupid minor (either he did something or the ref thinks he did something because that's his rep), 1 fight and 1 misconduct. The last minute was full of scraps, cheap shots - the guy who took down Perron after he scored and kept sucker-punching him while the ref watched? DJ better be in the lineup on the 13th.
Good things: TJ Oshie, Patrik Berglund, Perron looks stronger on the puck, McDonald hasn't slowed down, Pietrangelo might stick, multiple penalty killers up front (we might even score more than two SH goals this year!) Dutchie looks like he's rediscovered his shot, better physical presence from the forwards, McKee hasn't tripped over the blue line and suffered his half-season injury yet.
Bad things: Brewer still makes his one what-the-fuck-is-he-doing play each game, no Erik Johnson, power play looks alternately brilliant and clueless. One more defensive injury and we're gonna wish we had Salvador back.