Divisional battle tonight as the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs face off.
Tonight will be the regular season debut for both teams and a chance for both teams to show off their made over rosters in a non-preason environment.
Canadiens GM Gainey apparently forget there is a salary cap and made it rain like Pacman Jones at a strip club (the Kostitsyns then stepped in with the gunfire... if they show up). Montreal threw money at anything and everything... well, anything under 5' 7".
The Toronto Goons, on the other hand, were made over by tough guy lover Brian Burke. The Maple Leafs expect to rack up a higher number of penalty minutes in their first game than the Phoenix Coyotes will have viewers.... so expect the Maple Leafs to get at least 6 penalty minutes.
I believe the key issue tonight will be whether or not the terribly undersized Canadiens can get past the crush first, crush again, don't ask questions Toronto defense. The Maple Leafs D-men are big and opposing... and dare I say skilled? Vesa Toskala should be facing less shots this year, but who knows if he'll still have a problem stopping them... especially those pesky full ice shots:
While Toronto can pummel teams onto the ice they will have trouble putting pucks into the net. Phil
Now, if you look at the games between the Canadiens and the Maple Leafs from last season the scores go against everything I just said. The season series was split 3-3, each game being a complete blow out (the winning team scored 5 or 6 goals each time, while the losing team never scored more than 3). Montreal finished with 25 goals for, while Toronto had 21.
Montreal currently leads the all-time series with 371 wins, 303 losses, 88 ties, 4 overtime losses and 1 shootout loss. The Canadiens have scored 2,349 goals in the series while the Maple Leafs have scored 2,096.
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