Bench Life Sports

It’s the four year anniversary of the greatest debut in Maple Leafs history.

 

Just a throwback to better days. If you haven’t been paying attention Toronto is having are having a rough time lately. Well a whole year actually. At 2-2-1, turns out the Leafs have been a .500 for longer than you’d expect.

Not good!

All of this has been punctuated by the 7-3 shellacking at the hands of the Lightning on Thursday night. After a 4-3 first period the wheels fell off. Horrible play in their own end, penalty kill out of sorts and an uninspiring performance by Andersen. It’s all doom and gloom in the Maple Leafs new cycle. So why not bring on the Red Wings!

Tonight’s Game

https://www.instagram.com/p/B3hxDAjnmsN/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

The Red Wings are actively tanking yet sit at a 3-1-0 record. They’re essentially a one line team, but that one line has been off to a hot start. This is a team that has most of their young talent still in the minors (only one of their six first round picks since 2014 (Dennis Cholowski) made the team out of camp). I expect the Red Wings to cool off at some point, hopefully by tonight. I’m not one to put a “must win” label on a game, but a loss would whip the Toronto sports media machine into a frenzy. Leafs are 1-1-1 against their Atlantic division rivals so they have to shove these guys into a locker.

Players of Interest

Tyler Bertuzzi

Being from the Guelph area, I used to watch Bertuzzi chuck knucks and bury pucks since his time with the Storm. He currently has 3 goals and 6 points in 4 games, locking down the left wing on the top line with Anthony Mantha and Dylan Larkin. The top line has accounted for 10 of the team’s 14 goals so far. Tonight this line should receive a healthy amount of Toronto’s attention.

Frederik Andersen

Fair or not, the run and gun Leafs rely heavily on goaltending to bail them out. Even with a revamped blueline, Andersen had to shoulder much of the burden in their own end. Now Andersen is known to start regular seasons off slow, but he has to round into form if Toronto is even going to pretend to be a threat this year.

I’m a big Freddy guy so I believe he’ll be fine. But I can’t help but feel a bit of worry settle in.

Anthony Mantha

6 goals in 4 games? Sheesh. Mantha has come out of the gate red hot looking like a legitimate 30 (40?(50?(probably not 60))) goal threat this year. The big boy from Longueuil, Quebec, vanquisher of the 2014 Guelph Storm’s Memorial Cup dreams, is finally delivering on his big time potential.

Phil’s Thoughts

Here’s some quick talking points from couch correspondent Phillip Waind:

“Ceci stinks. Kapanen stinks. Hyman, doesn’t stink as much as I thought until watching Kapanen. Andersen stinks right now. Marner stinks but still picks up apples. Matthews. Simply the best.”

 

Final Thoughts

Since it’s Thanksgiving weekend and I’m already mixing in some birthday drinks, I’ll keep it short and simple. Beat Detroit.