“When you give the class the exam and they all get 50 per cent you didn’t teach very good. We’re just kind of minding our business, doing what we have to do to get ready for games”. “Are we having progress?”
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The Toronto Maple Leafs and Columbus Blue Jackets square off Friday night at the Nationwide Arena.
It was a needed dose of positive reinforcement, according to Babcock.
“What I need for the group is to reinforce that what we’re doing is good”, said Babcock. “They are playing with better structure and they are competing harder”.
A – Toronto has to put a team on the ice and wants to be able to keep youngsters like William Nylander, Connor Brown and Kasperi Kapanen in the American Hockey League for most or all of this season, so that would mean making deals for players with short-term deals closer to the February 29th trade deadline.
ESPN ranked the Toronto Maple Leafs dead last out of all the major sports franchises on the continent, a position they’ve held for three of the past four years. Brandon Saad leads Columbus with three goals, Ryan Johansen has four assists and Nick Foligno has 17 shots on goal.
They didn’t just lose tonight, they were out-shot and often out-worked.
After the Blue Jackets battled back to tie it, Joffrey Lupul took a lovely pass from Phaneuf and outwaited Sergei Bobrovsky for the eventual victor at 4:00 of the third period. Daniel Winnik had three assists and has registered a point against the Blue Jackets in five consecutive games (two goals, eight assists). “That’s where goals are (scored) in this league”.
“I thought it was a great event for our players to be at”. You really should listen to the interview, but the most important thing (to me, anyways) was Dubas basically says “No one in this organization is thinking short-term”.
A practice week couldn’t have come at a better time.
Leafs forwards Shawn Matthias and Michael Grabner recorded their first points with the team – Matthias assisted on Nazem Kadri’s goal; Grabner on Leo Komarov’s empty-netter.
In the end, it was a special victory enjoyed by Babcock.
Babcock has tried to preach to his team to be more resilient, not to let a goal against get you down. “You kind of get used to it. There have been lots of positive things that have happened since I have arrived here”. I’m thrilled with the direction we’re going. “We have tonnes of work to do as you know but it’s always nice to win”.
When the Columbus Blue Jackets fell to 0-3, their GM said that his team was “off the rails”. The Blue Jackets are 6-1 in their last 7 Friday games and 0-4 in their last 4 vs. Eastern Conference. Reimer won for first time in four tries against Columbus.
“Datsyuk wanted Helm and Zetterberg wanted Abdelkader”.
For Babcock, it’s not so much being a puppet as delegating. I was disappointed when I got sent down but it’s an opportunity to prove why we (Hyman and the other players assigned to the AHL) belong with the big club.
Babcock wasn’t especially impressed with Komarov at the start of training camp; he isn’t sure whether conditioning was an issue or if the 28-year-old simply had trouble adjusting to the newness of everything.
In the first game under the NHL’s new coach’s challenge system for goaltender interference and offside situations, Montreal Canadiens forward Tomas Plekanec interfered with Bernier.
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Reimer said he can tell from another goalie’s body language if he gets interfered with. Ideally, of course, they don’t want to assume any of it, and instead receive prospects to help speed their rebuild.
