Same Time in June?

I often have hopes that this would be the Stanley Cup Final some day. These two teams are good enough to get that far. We saw the Colorado Avalanche get there three years ago and win it. The Toronto Maple Leafs are good enough to get there, too; don't let talking heads and jealous Edmonton Oilers fans fool you. This meeting is a tale of two teams heading in different directions. The Avs are among the hottest teams in the league, while the Leafs have been descending, going from first place to third place in two weeks. This includes the first meeting this season, which saw the Leafs go up 4-2 before surrendering five unanswered goals.

Mackenzie Blackwood was in net against Joseph Woll in this one, and it was during the first period that I learned that Josh Manson will be out 3-4 weeks. Yikes. Avs dominated the period, actually having a 9-0 lead in shots. First penalty call was actually a set of matching minors, and the Avs continued to dominate and press, doing everything but score. It was no score after 20 minutes, with Colorado leading 11-4 in shots. The period ended with the Leafs on the power play, and in the second period, the Leafs struck, and of course, it was Auston Matthews. I thought it went off Matthew Knies, but it was Matthews' goal, and that PPG had that expensive core written all over it, as Mitch Marner and John Tavares assisted. Avs were looking for something, and we received a PP, and that led to a tie game. Valeri Nichushkin tied it up, and the assists went to Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar.

Avs still pressed, and we saw another set of matching minors in the period, whcih ended with the game tied at 1. Third period saw the Avs on the power play early, but here's where it gets crazy. A clearing attempt saw the puck strike referee Kelly Sutherland. Simon Benoit gets it, passed it to Steven Lorentz, and all of a sudden, it's a shorthanded goal. Second straight game that a puck hitting a ref leads to a goal against the Avs. Ugh. Down by one, and we should have received another power play due to Marner clearly tripping Makar, but no go. Time winded down, the extra attacker was on. Leafs couldn't hit the empty net, but we didn't have a lot of chances to tie it up, so that was that.

This was a heartbreaker. Yes, the ref causing that shortie was a reason. Another was us getting goalie'd by Woll. We had 39 shots and Woll stopped 38 of them. On the bright side, MacKinnon and Makar had points. Mack's up to 104, a four point lead over Leon Draisaitl, who somehow didn't have a single point in a game where the Oilers scored seven goals. Yet idiots want Leon to get the Hart over Mack. Please. Also, Makar's point was his 79th this season. I'm just going to say it: Cale's getting 100 this year. Dead serious. He has time to do it; 13 games left to get 21 points, and you know Cale's capable of getting multi-point games.

So we're one down in this Eastern Canadian trip, and this is the first of a back-to-back. We'll be off to Ottawa on the next day, and that team is absolutely red hot, but we can cool them off.

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