Who’s ready for Prime Monday Night Hockey?
The Leafs are looking to rebound following Saturday night’s 4-1 loss against the New York Rangers.
We kicked off the Monday edition of Leafs Morning Take by talking about Anthony Stolarz’s skate blade issue from over the weekend. Bottom line: It’s a player safety issue, and personally, I think the whistle should be blown immediately when a goaltender loses their blade. The position is so volatile, we don’t need more injuries than there already are. Just my opinion, though.
Courtesy of Square, we broke down the game from over the weekend. Surprisingly, we didn’t see a scrap between Ryan Reaves and Matt Rempe. For starters, Rosey was shocked about that. In fact, he mentioned that he had heart that Rempe asked Reaves a few times to go, and the veteran turned him down. Personally, I think Reaves has looked solid thus far, I really can’t have an opinion on the whole fighting thing. I’ll leave that to Rosey.
After that, we tackled the crease. Igor Shesterkin was good, so was Anthony Stolarz. Once again, though, Toronto’s power play let them down. They were 0-for-3 in the game and they’re now 2-for-16 on the early season. When you have that much star power, simply put, that’s just not good enough.
Meantime, we gave some love to Chris Tanev. The veteran blueliner – as he does most games – had a wicked shot block. He missed a few shifts, but ultimately, he returned. The guy’s such a warrior. He will be so important for this team in the playoffs.
Brought to you by Prime Video, we previewed Leafs and Lightning on Prime Monday Night Hockey. Vasilevskiy against Stolarz. Matthews against Kucherov. It’s always fun every time these two teams get together. Additionally, we dissected Toronto’s lone lineup change: Max Pacioretty in, Ryan Reaves out.
We’ll be back on Tuesday at 11 AM ET. Join us as we recap Leafs/Lightning plus look ahead to second half of the back-to-back in Columbus.
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