We recap every Maple Leafs game, but I rarely write any of them on Saturday night - or ever - because I'm usually tipsy from drinking adult beverages while watching the game. However, there is no one else available tonight, so you are stuck with me and my beer goggles. This should be fun!

I'm doing this stream of consciousness style because try and stop me, Overlord Steve!

Here’s my recap of all that happened tonight as the Leafs lost 6-3 to the Senators.

PRE-GAME

So, I just got home from the Marlies game, and they won 1-0 vs. the Manitoba Moose. It was a weird game, and kind of boring after yesterday's 5-2 victory. Sparks looked good in net, and he needed to be. Froese was out with a mystery injury. But, you can read more about this in my Marlies recap which is located at this link ---> (Look, I haven't had time to do it yet because I'm doing this.)

It's Hockey Day in Canada. Who knew? I bet we're going to get a teary-eyed montage of self-absorbed cheering for Canada because EVERYONE in this country grew up playing hockey on a frozen pond in a small town, and that certainly hasn't changed in the past 100 years at all. We all still live in small towns and dream of being hockey stars.

And there's the teary-eyed nationalistic hockey montage.

That couple in the Secrets Resorts and Spa ceremony had a vacation just like JvR and I had together. Seriously. We did all those things including the bubble bath with our fancy clothes on which is totally something sexy people do together, though everyone else knows it is fucking stupid.

Again. You’re stuck with me tonight, folks.


Maple Leafs announce four new additions to legends row


A SURPRISE LEGENDS ROW CEREMONY!

Charlie Conacher!
Red Kelly!
Frank Mahovlich!
Wendel Clark!

I was hoping Chris Neil would have been called up to do the ceremonial puck drop and Wendel would jersey him and knee him in the groin, but, alas, it's Erik Karlsson.

Martina Ortiz-Luis is no longer referred to as “fifteen year-old Martina Ortiz-Luis,” which is good. It was making a caricature out of her.

The game features Andersen vs. Anderson. They are already trying to confuse me.

FIRST PERIOD

20:00 Oh crap I have to pay attention now.

19:45 Dion Phaneuf gets the first shot because of course he does.

19:00 JvR gets off a great shot on a breakaway. It didn't go in, but, clearly he can score with his clothes on.

17:10 William Nylander does a hilarious double lap around the net. Who was it who did that once before? Was it Ovechkin?

16:00 JvR has another nice scoring chance again in the four-on-four.

15:10 Frederik Andersen makes a great stop on Turris. This four-on-four is great hockey, btw. When I cover the Marlies four-on-four is usually boring.

14:20 Roman Polak gets the puck on his stick and shoots immediately. Because that's all he does now.

CBC please stop using that weird ice level camera for face-offs

13:50 Dzingel and Nikita Zaitsev spar post-whistle in the battle of “Z”. Brigstew could take them both at once I think.

13:20 Nikita Soshnikov takes a shot and I see he gets hooked and there's something starting but CBC cuts away and shows none of it and I wanted to see.

12:40 Jake Gardiner breaks up a scoring chance by the Senators but it looks like he did it by accident and has no idea what happened.

10:50 Soshnikov has had a lot of great plays this season that don't show up on the score sheet.

10:15 Penalty kill is OK. Just OK. Andersen snatches a scoring chance a way from Stone and gets it clear.

9:15 Nylander wraps around and sets up a beauty of a scoring chance for Matthews but there's too much traffic in front of the net

9:00 Andersen stops a huge slapshot from Jean-Gabriel Pugeaut.

7:39 Leo Komarov draws a penalty! Power-play time. 24-51-29-12-34

STOP WITH THE WEIRD CAMERA ANGLES, CBC!

6:06 Kyle Turris grabs Zaitsev's jersey and we have another Sens penalty. 22 seconds of five-on-three

4:21 Get out of the way, ref! Also Leivo on the PP? OK.

2:51 Turnover again leads to a Senators scoring chance that almost goes in...

2:34 TURNOVER AGAIN leads to Senators scoring chance. This one does go in. Goal by Wideman.

2:14 UGH. Sens score again off the face-off. Let's just get this period over with.

1:46 LOL Bobby Ryan gets a weird delay of game penalty.

1:18 Language, James! This is a family game.

1:06 OH FUCKING FUCK GARDINER? WHAT THE FUCK? What is going on with you tonight? Gardiner gives it away again, right at the net again!


Sharks trade Wingels to Senators


0:03 Oh, right, Tommy Wingels plays for the Senators now.

INTERMISSION

Tim Hortons your food does not look anything at all like those carefully composed sandwiches in the commercial.


Anna Paquin to star in CBC mystery drama Bellevue


This new CBC show Bellevue looks intriguing.

Chris Wideman shave your ugly neck-beard.

The QuickBooks commercial sounds creepy. How can you see when your clients view your invoices? How does that happen? Why would a business want that functionality?
“Hi, I see you viewed my invoice 8 minutes ago. Is there a reason you haven’t paid it yet?”

SECOND PERIOD

20:00 Gardiner is not benched. Remember when Randy Carlyle would do dumb shit like that?

18:45 Zaitsev makes a great block.

18:17 “You lose a stick. You lose a stick. Everyone loses a stick!”

15:55 Polak : “I HAVE PUCK I SHOOT PUCK HARD!”

15:00 I am not liking the Leivo-Kadri-Komarov line. To borrow an aphorism, “there’s no there there.” They can’t seem to make anything happen.

The Philadelphia Cream Cheese budget meeting commercial is awful. Nothing will ever top the OLG’s “surprise big budget meeting” commercial in this category.

11:52 Andersen standing on his head. Guess which defence pairing was on the ice that necessitated he do that?

10:31 Martin off for interference. He must miss not having Marner on the bench.

10:20 UGH now Zach Hyman takes a penalty. Leafs facing 1:49 of 5 on 3 play.

10:20 The Senators have yet to score on a five-on-three this season so....

9:35 OMGBENSMITH! taking the PK face-off.

9:00 Hunwick clears it. Good, Hunwick!

8:31 LOLSNES. Another five-on-three fail. And a total PK fail! Credit where it is due: good work by Komarov, Hunwick, and Smith there.

7:47 NOOOO BROWN! A trip to the dentist for you!

6:30 Another shift of the Leivo-Kadri-Komarov line and there was zero ability for them to break-out or run the Senators defence.

5:43 Now I don’t know what the hell is going on. Gardiner is carrying the puck in to the attacking zone, but he’s way ahead of all the forwards and all he can do is pass it over to Bozak who is well covered.

5:22 OMG A GOAL! Thank you Rielly. The Leafs are back in this. Also thank you Hyman for doing that thing you did with the Marlies last season.

2:30 Matthews and Nylander seem confused about who should be where at times. They almost ran into each other because they were both chasing the puck.

Overhead shot of Toronto reminds they STILL have not finished the new roof to Union GO Station. It’s been like 5 years? WTF are they doing?

2:10 HOW DID THAT NOT GO IN?

2:09 NAZ! LOL Right off Anderson’s back. That was a great shot.

So of course right after I tweet out my displeasure with the line they score a great goal.

1:00 The Leafs are finally looking like I remember them from the past few games. the Bozak line has a great shift.

INTERMISSION

That’s not virtual reality Rogers!

“Our first date was at Tim Horton’s” OMG how was it not also the last?

I am spending this intermission attempting to get my duvet back inside the duvet cover. We’ll see if I can do this in the 10 minutes before the game starts again.

Success! Though I ripped the top part of that duvet cover where you stuff in everything. SIGH.

David Amber is a great host of HNIC.

I don’t know what this “Get Out” movie is but that trailer freaked me out.

THIRD PERIOD

20:00 Leivo-Kadri-Komarov still together. Despite the goal I am surprised Babcock didn’t shake up that line.

19:15 Nice penalty draw by Hyman against Ceci.

18:39 Great scoring chance by Bozak!

18:15 Gardiner attempts a weird backwards pass he didn’t need to and turns over the puck.

17:56 OMG NYLANDER!

14:26 Now Hoffman scores to tie the game. That really looked like Andersen could not have anticipated it.

13:48 The “Call Kadri for anything and everything” rule is still in effect.

13:34 This is not going well.

<I missed about 5 minutes of the game here because I was writing up this recap!>

6:30 Fuck you Chris Neil. What a cheap shot.

5:10 Nylander, Hyman get awesome chances and miss/post. Great shift but you gotta get it in there!

LOL, Boston Pizza, please. Don’t even try to pretend throwing Italian words into your commercials makes anyone think your food is good.

2:10 Andersen is pulled from the net.

2:05 Nylander’s chance was great there. Bozak-Kadri-Leivo-Carrick-JvR-Gardiner out for the six-on-five.

1:50 WHELP. That pulling the goalie early thing didn’t work.

0:40 WHELP. That pulling the goalie early thing didn’t work AGAIN.

0:00 the Leafs fall to the Senators.