WOW! Dontcha love it when the Leafs come to town? We got the game of the season… so far… on Thursday night. Dontcha just wanna keep Hanzal’s parents in town too. Marty went ghettofabulous in their honor.

But let’s start at the beginning shall we? It is so much more fun. Sit back and let Onyx tell you a story about the night the Leafs fell in the desert, how the Breezer got his groove back and what happens when Hanzal gets hot. No, I’m not mixing metaphors, these are all elements in the story people… now just read on.

The teams were quite evenly matched that dark, cool night in the desert. The Swedish Wolf was guarding the net for the side of right. The former Shark Toskala was minding the Toronto bastions. But out of nowhere came 2 fierce warriors determined to prevail. Hanzal struck first after Toskala was lured nearly out of the net. 1 - 0 for the good guys. Then the Russian scoundrel known only as Poni, struck back, hammering rebound after rebound back at the Wolf until one finally went into our net. 1 - 1. No, no don’t despair, the intrepid Hanzal strode forth once more to do battle against the arch villain Toskala. With a mighty backhand, our knight in red drew blood once again, giving us back our lead. 2 -1 Yotes. Alas, the blue clad villain Poni returned fire and tied the game again. 2 - 2. Stride for stride these two behemoths jousted throughout the 1st round.

A brief intermission ensued and the war was once more enjoined. The hero Hanzal marshalled his reserves and although outnumbered and besieged, slew the Toskala with a shorthanded goal. Helms, chapeaus and head coverings of all kinds showered down upon the jousting field, honoring the Hanzal’s briiliant achievement… 3 - 2 Yotes. But the vile villains of Toronto refused to give up, repeatedly crashing through our countryside until one despicable knave named Blake managed to slip past the Wolf’s defenses to tie the contest yet again. 3 - 3. Well good king Wayne saw that the forces for good were starting to lag and the Wolf, though fully capable of finishing the contest with valor, could use some respite. So he called upon the knight errant Bryzgalov to relieve the Wolf and bring a lift to the hard battling yet beleagured heroes.

Thus started the third and final round of the contest. The valiant desert host rallied round the new net guardian, showed him love, and began to battle with new earnest. First came Sir Rhino with his fearless comrads Morris and Doan to break the tie and infuse new will into the stalwart warriors. 4 - 3 Yotes and a chalupa feast was assured! Again Sir Rhino charged forth, the audacious Morris and plucky Mueller at his back for yet another raid on the flagging Toskala, bringing the score to 5 - 3. There was no pity to be had as the brash and cheeky, Tiki, unselfishly setup his stalwart paladin Fedoruk for the coup de grace in the waning moments of the game. 6 - 3 Yotes. And THAT children is the conclusion of the story of how the Leafs fell in the valley of the sun.

hey! okay, a lil wonky but thats basically what happened. In between all that knightly crap, there were the weakest boarding calls I’ve seen in quite some time. Minor dust ups including DC getting his first misconduct of the season (whoa! wild thang is truly back and thank goodness for it). TGO made a crazy intuitive goalie decision and pulled Telly for Bryzzie and rallied the boys up for the final push. brilliant! (I guess the old saw is true, when something crazy suceeds you are a genius, when it doesn’t you are a goat). Z played like an insane maniac AGAIN! goin down in front of the over extended Bryz to block yet another shot and actually hand pass the puck out of danger in a crease scrum (does my baby not have ANY sense of self preservation?) Hanzal was simply and completely amazing. Rhino showed the young Leafs some new tricks.

The only bad thing I could find in this game was the PP and the FO… again.(12-11-2) over the .500 mark again! Thank god for home games. Now if we can take at least 2 of these 3 totally winnable games on the road trip, all we be well in my world and maybe by the time the boys get back I will have shaken this truly heinous cold.

If you want the unmedicated version of this post mortem try Odie over at five for howling or the refreshingly honest pension plan puppets take. Schenn is going to be a fantastic defenseman. Kaberle apparently shoulda stayed home and is probably regretting his NTC decision to stay a Leaf. Gotta love Poni.

Make like Toronto and leaf your 2 points at the door, is a favorite saying around the desert. Last game was 5 -1 in the Yotes favor. We are both sitting at 24 points, bot of our records in the last 10 games is 3-5-2. But the Leafs have Toskala in net and if we don’t solve him right away, he gets bigger, badder and harder to solve for some reason. In our favor is Mikael Tellqvist who is playing out of his mind right now and has something to prove to his former team.

Both teams are rebuilding, I’d like to think we are further along in the process and that we can take this game and step up in the standings. SCOTT puts it very nicely… Leafs beat Kings, 3-1, (two pp and an empty net)…we beat the Kings, 4-2, 1 pp, and an empty net…so we should beat Leafs 4-3… LOL I hope his math is good and we get another CHALUPA night!

No Hale tonight as WG replaces the hapless dman with Ken Klee again. As long as Telly doesn’t get too focused on outside influences and just goes in to do his job we should be okay. The boys love playin for the Wolf.

!!!LET’s GO COYOTES!!!

Odie’s take on the GDT

The Toronto Perspective

I wasn’t quite sure how to write this one up. Total euphoria makes a blogger tend to wax lyrically. But I will try very hard to be honest about this one.

It takes a committee. I’ve said it before. To achieve a game like this, it takes a hell of a lot from every…single…body… on the ice.

Raycroft started in goal. We ran him out within the first 8 minutes. With Dwin scoring in the first 4 minutes and Mules 2 minutes later, Raycroft got yanked quick. Trust me when I say McCabe never saw Dwin comin until it was too late. Raycroft was positioned for the shooter (trusting McC to cover his back…Raycroft gets burned for his trust). On the Big PM’s goal, Ray stops Z’s shot but puts the rebound out there for Mules to pop, so that was on him. 2 - 0 Yotes  But reason to pull him so early? I didn’t think so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73xShb9tow4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRFtw0kmhvg 

It takes a lot to make Vesa Toskala look like a rookie. This guy was a superb Coyote killer in the past. The Leafs manage to make Tos look horrible during the first minutes of his entry into the game. The Dawgs smell blood right away. The Yotes were on a mission. With HNIC in town, there was no way the boys were gonna get shown up in their own house (there is a lot of pride and determination wearing the brick and white these days). Coming off 3 winning games, riding a super hot goalie and feeding off the Canadian hype, our boys were locked and loaded.

My heart sank when Vesa skated onto the ice. One of our worst nemesis from the last 2 seasons, was taking the net. I began to pray that the 2 early goals could be enuff and that if we could just keep them contained, we could walk away with a win. Oh, me of little faith. Rhino gives Toskala a good old fashioned desert welcome and nails him in the first 20 seconds. 3 - 0 Yotes That is when I took a real good look at the team we were facing rather than the hype of an Big 6, Canadian giant. This TO team refused to block shots, refused to get in anyones face, refused to battle for loose pucks and sure as hell wasn’t entering any foot races to get to any pucks. I settled down and started hoping we wouldn’t take our foot off the gas instead.

At this point it becomes obvious that the Leafs need a wake up and Darcy Tucker takes on our Carcillo (we shall call this notion Carcillo-cide).

Carci looks little and isn’t billed as a heavyweight but… he takes on Tucker like a MAC truck on PCP.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8f9SE7W5Gk

After the Tucker beat down, the Yotes slowed down and took a quick look too. Feet stopped movin, TO won a couple puck battles and so TO inevitably scored. Not pretty or highlight worthy but they got on the board (they didn’t look very happy about it… no rejoicing or arm raising and only a smile or two) and they woke us back up.

The scoring committee voted to have Dmo get the next one (appeared to be Ziggy but was announced later as Dmo’s) Morris copped is 300th point! woo hoo! Givin extra love to DMo for being the Phoenix Coyotes Booster Club sponsored player this season too. 4 - 1 Yotes. The period ends and a jubilant set of desert warriors leave the ice with the exhortations of their adoring fans ringing in their ears.

In the second period we come out the same way as the first, scrappin and yappin. We nail Toskala again in the first 2 minutes. The BigKids Dwin and Hanzal combine with the shootist Vbrat for a ripper and make the game 5 - 1 Yotes.

Finally, during the mid point of the second and all of the third Vesa’s instincts take over and he pretty much single handedly keeps us off the board (added to the fact that our foot comes off the pedal just a wee bit… not enough to let the Leafs back into the game though). The Leafs, an original 6 team, were a total disappointment. They have size, they have talent, they have stars, they have Toskala but they lack heart, committment and buyin to a system. The Coyotes basically walked into their kitchen and to quote our resident snowman ‘found out where mama hid the cookies’. They raided the jar early and often.

Apparently the Leaf’s Bell hasn’t been paying attention to the Who’s Who in the desert brawling directory because he takes on our very own Weller. We know how often Wellie has walked away from most taunts and taps…not last night. Apparently Bell tripped Wellie’s pisstivity switch and Craig beat the flyin snot outta him (much like the Fedoruk match).

No contest. Wellie wins. Poor Bell, stripped, flipped and whipped!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj1ueHDUQcU

The rest of the period Toskala jumps on everything he can reach, TO gets a wee bit of life and we ease up and start looking for easy holes while protecting our zone. But both goalies have shut the gates for the period and neither team can generate a goal.

The last period the Leafs apparently figure, since they can’t score on us they might as well beat on us. Bell (having learned not to mess w/ Weller) tees up the really tired Carcillo. Carci is game and gives it his best shot but after 50 minutes of play and a pretty big bout against Tucker, our boy gets taken down…not beaten…simply out of gas.

We get some really nice chances (oh Hanzal! you were RIGHT THERE! Hanzal misses several beautiful chances at Toskala as does York) The puck decides we’ve had enuff breaks, it’s Toskala’s turn for some luck.

The game ends with 13 Coyotes with a point. Zero Coyotes in the minus. Ziggy 9 - 2 FO wins. Jovo with another very good game! (I am still waiting to declare that I was right about him having his best season in years but he is certainly on his way to it now). Carcillo in no danger of losin his 1st place status in the PIM stakes. On a 4 game win streak and we’re hovering above .500. Thanks Maple Leafs…come again…anytime…we’ll leave the lamp lit for ya.

~photos from BTinAZ~ as usual the Hip Check paparazzi had it goin on! see the rest:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9302501@N02/sets/72157603285172080/