COLUMBUS, OHIO-Mike Babcock uses the school teacher analogy a lot.
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After a hectic early slate, the Toronto Maple Leafs got an extended break before beginning one of their longest road trips of the season. The Lake Erie Monsters have their home-opener tonight, while the Blue Jackets will fly to Chicago after tonight’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Full marks to the guys for the win. “That’s a positive for them”.
Sergei Bobrovsky, the 2013 Vezina victor, is on a four-year, $29.7 million United States contract extension that runs through 2018-19. Jack and Savy have played a few big minutes for us in the past. Finally getting a win, he thinks, will help cement his messages.
“All in all, we had a good night”, Babcock said. I was a bad coach and he made me a good coach by his play. “If you keep doing those things you will be rewarded over time”. However, me being a Leaf fan, I love where this franchise is heading, and that’s because the new leadership group in Toronto has decided that “rebuilding” is okay for this team and fanbase. While the Blue Jackets slide lower and lower down the National Hockey League standings without a win in five games, a 34-shot performance by the Maple Leafs gives them their first win of the 2015-16 season. If you assume that it takes 95 points to make the playoffs, that means Columbus would need to go at least 45-27-5 the rest of the way just to reach that. Lupul, on a grinding line with Daniel Winnik and Nick Spaling, kept forechecking.
When the Columbus Blue Jackets fell to 0-3, their GM said that his team was “off the rails”.
Babcock won his very first game behind the bench with Anaheim in 2002, repeating the feat three years later with Detroit.
“I think he’s fine, (but) I’m not 100 percent certain”, Babcock said of Bozak’s status.
Others were a little forthright about the snow, saying Canadians should be used to this kind of weather in October. “That’s a cool thing that’s happening”, said Rielly. Surprisingly, while the majority of us were watching the Jays fall to Kansas City, the Maple Leafs actually put together a strong game and picked up their first victory of the season, a 6-3 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets. Komarov later added the empty-netter. Nick Foligno, Boone Jenner and Scott Hartnell scored for Columbus.
By the time Dion Phaneuf got to hand Mike Babcock a puck commemorating his first win as head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, there was an overwhelming sentiment inside the dressing room that it had been the product of a lot of hard work.
As to what follows, it’s impossible to say, but it’s certainly going to be nothing like what was expected for this team. Only 59 seconds into the third, Hartnell one-timed a feed from center Ryan Johansen on the power play to make it 3-3. “I really didn’t have anything to shoot at and I waited”.
In Columbus, there was a palpable feel of panic among the hockey folks here. Someone’s going to get their first victory of the season.
“It’s on us as players”, said Foligno.
A prime example of this malaise was on display last Saturday versus the New York Rangers. “It’s embarrassing we haven’t done it and there’s an urgency… now is the time”.
The Blue Jackets recalled forward Kerby Rychel from their AHL-affiliate Lake Erie Monsters in Cleveland.
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“Not may guys are left”, Clarkson said, addressing the changes on the Toronto side. Obviously I loved my time in Toronto. It didn’t go the way I wanted. It was tough for me.
