An Unusual Start To The Season
Saturday night, the Leafs defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins. Friday night, they swept the season series over the Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings, taking the only two games they'll meet this season (2 between these two teams? That's a first!). In fact, with the Toronto win and Philadelphia tie Saturday night, the Leafs are in - GASP - first place in the NHL!!! Could that be possible? Well, it is. And in fact, all other Canadian teams are having pretty decent starts. This will not help the NHL's effort to get tax relief for Canadian clubs.
Toronto has started to pull away from the rest of the division. For how long, we have yet to see. With Colorado's 0-4-1 start, the 3 western Canadian teams are also off to great starts. Which leads to another unusual tidbit. Colorado. 0-4-1. The 1996 Stanley Cup champions have been sliding more and more since that win. Could this be like the Nordiques' troubled days in the late '80s? They only got their first win this past weekend. It was a nail-biting, brawl-filled battle with Edmonton that finally led to their first victory of the season. Sorry San Jose.
The New York Rangers have also gotten off to a bad start, losing their first 4 games, but now they're riding a 3-game undefeated streak, so maybe it was just a bad start.
Los Angeles now has 3 goalies on the injured list. Manny Legace being the most recent. After stopping 48 of 49 shots Oct. 21 in a 1-1 tie with Florida, Legace was flattened after Tampa Bay's Darcy Tucker walked in on a breakaway, shot and went into Legace, landing on his head. On Oct. 18, in a 5-5 tie with Colorado, starting goalie Stephane Fiset left around the 7-minute mark of the third with a strained groin. While Jamie Storr was in net, HE strained his groin, but played injured for about 8 minutes. Colorado capitalized in the last minute, picking up goals 25 seconds apart at 19:10 and 19:25 to settle for their only point. BTW, in the Tampa game, 2 Bolts charged into goalie Ryan Bach in the third period, hurting his back. I don't know if the trainer was serious or desperate, but he told Bach to stay in the game. I can picture any former Kings goalie right now. "Thank God I'm not there this year!"
Two teams with problems, Pittsburgh and the Islanders. The co-chairman of the Penguins' creditor committee is Mario Lemieux. There's a memory Howard Baldwin and Roger Marino want to put behind them. The Pens owe Lemieux $28.7 million. Their debt amounts to around $100 million. Almost like they're politicians. A little tidbit, as of February 14, 1999, the Igloo will be the oldest arena in the NHL, Valentine's being the day after the Leafs play the Blackhawks for the final time in Maple Leaf Gardens.
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