The St. John’s Maple Leafs salvaged some pride in the final two games of their road trip against the Saint John Flames, thanks to some outstanding goaltending from Mikael Tellqvist as they earned three points out a possible four against the Flames, with a 4-2 win Saturday and an 3-3 tie Friday.
Tellqvist’s weekend against the Flames looked impressive. 95 saves on 100 shots for a .950 save percentage, a 2.40 GAA and two first star selections. The effort was especially needed after the Leafs had lost their previous five on the road.
Saturday’s 4-2 Leafs win had 49 saves from Tellqvist, and Paul Healey and Alex Ponikarovsky had a goal and an assist each to lead the Leafs to their first “W” since October 25th, despite the fact some vets were out of the lineup. Captain Craig Mills is out til December with a broken finger after a fight with Hartford’s Billy Tibbetts, Bob Wren was a scratch after suffering a concussion Friday while Josh Holden was recalled to Toronto.
The power-play accounted for three of the Leafs four goals but the Leafs hadn’t been getting a lot of shots on the Flames net with the man advantage, while the Flames peppered Tellqvist with more rubber than Michelin sees in a week throughout the game.
After Garrett Bembridge opened the scoring for the Flames in the first, the Leafs tallied two powerplay markers in the second. Paul Healey’s 6th from Chris Chartier and Ponikarovsky at 13:05 and Brad Leeb’s 8th from Nathan Barrett and Chartier at 17:54. The Leafs padded their lead 4:19 into the third with Brad Boyes 4th of the year from Aaron Gavey, but the Flames made it close with Robert Dome (the former Pen)got his 1st of the year at 9:19. However, Ponikarovsky iced it at 19:18 with a power play empty netter with his 5th from Healey.
Friday’s contest saw a see-saw contest which ended up in a 3-3 draw. Former Leaf Ladislav Kohn tallied for the Flames but it was Oleg Saprykin who scored the game tying goal 14:40 into the third on a powerplay to add with the game’s first goal that he scored. Brad Leeb (his 7th), Chris Chartier (his 2nd), and Aaron Gavey(his 3rd) tallied the goals for the Blue and White with Chartier’s being the only powerplay marker for the Leafs. Tellqvist made 46 saves for the tie, while Dany Sabourin only handled 23 shots. The Leafs ready themselves for a weekend series at home against newly demoted goalie Curtis Sanford and the Worcester Ice Cats. Karel Pilar has been reassigned to the team from Toronto so the club will have nine defencemen, which is the equivalent of healthy forwards available. Perhaps Allan Rourke, who played wing late in the year last season could be moved up from the D if needed. He may be if Wren is still suffering the effects of that concussion and no other players are brought in.
Leafs notes:
With Craig Mills out, Aaron Gavey will be wearing the Leafs captaincy. Gavey, who was with the Minnesota Wild last year, has a wealth of experience and will be a help. It’s a little interesting that Leafs players that were here last season weren’t considered for the job.
The Toronto Star made a big booboo in a recent article saying that the Leafs, who may be interested in reacquiring Dmitri Yushkevich, said that two St. John’s Maple Leafs scouts were at the Panthers-Flames game. Those “scouts” were the Leafs senior manager of hockey operations, Chris Schwartz, and Rob Mullowney, the team’s marketing co-ordinator, who were not there to scout players but to see how NHL teams conduct game-day operations. The Baby Leafs do not have any scouts, and the coaching staff were in St. John, NB. Schwartz told the Telegram that “We never even took a note about a player. In fact, a lot of the time we weren’t paying attention to the game. We were interested in how they ran things during the game.” The confusion might have been caused by the press box listing in Florida that they were representatives of the St. John’s Maple Leafs and not what their positions were. Oh well, sometimes people will do anything for a headline.
After the Leafs games this weekend, they head to Hamilton for a couple of games against the Bulldogs and then back again for a six game homestand.
Glenn Stanford, Coach Lou Crawford and assistant Russ Adam, along with some Leaf players, were in attendance November 13th at the Canadian Paraplegic Association had a fundraising event dinner featuring CBC broadcaster Ron MacLean and local writer Ed Smith, who is a paraplegic. MacLean was very nice in person, signing autographs (especially for one Hockey’s Future reporter) and recollected some of his unique experiences being the side man to the ever omnipresent Don Cherry on CBC’s Coaches Corner. Over 400 people attended the dinner, with a $100 per plate pricetag. The Leafs also donated some memorabilia for the silent auction. Unfortunately, the Boston Bruins jersey was not signed by Crawford, who had a brief stint in Beantown in the 1980′s after a successful minor league stint with the Maine Mariners.
