Previously, on clrkaitken tries to recap a Maple Leafs - Predators game.
And now, on a very special Clone High...
The Leafs were in Nashville for the second game of their mini-road trip having beat Dallas on Tuesday night.
This was aesthetically a truly awful game to watch. There was very little flow, as both teams attempt to play a suffocating brand of possession hockey that should see Mike Babcock and Peter Laviolette face charges for crimes against entertainment.
Nashville is built from the back-end out and Toronto is basically an expansion team, but both teams got strong goaltending tonight so goals and chances were quite scarce.
Since most of the other writers had previous commitments (lucky bastards), and/or had recently suffered brain trauma, I was tasked with trying to recap tonight's game for you fine folks.
Problem is that between this game being mind-numbingly boring and being pulled away sporadically for dad duty, I have no freaking clue what happened. So I'm sharing my paycheque* from writing tonight's recap with you all for helping with your thoughts.
*About that paycheque...
In the first period, the teams played a Samuel Beckett-esque vision of the ultimate fate of possession hockey, in which nothing happens repeatedly. The Leafs managed a few shots thanks to a couple of powerplays, but the best shot, sadly, was the one they didn’t take, as JVR passed up an open net to pass to an open man. As Michael Scott would tell us Wayne Gretzky would tell us, this means he missed. The goalies were good in limited action and succeeded in not passing out from boredom. - Acting the Fulemin
"The first half of the game was ass."
That should do it. - not norm ullman
Yeah, pretty much. Even the third period didn't get much better, and your thoughts seemed to devolve into sleeping animal GIFs.
The teams traded goals in the third period - Shea Weber on the powerplay early in the third, and Tyler Bozak replied a few minutes later.
Nashville got a powerplay extremely late in the third period that carried over into overtime, and led to one of the most boring and predictable 4 on 3 powerplays I can recall.
Even the shootout was horrific, with nobody even scoring until Peter Holland scored on the fifth shot to win.
Somebody who can explain to me why the Leafs are so damn good against the Central Division is a much smarter person than I.
This game sucked. James Reimer played pretty well.
Here's the food fight from Animal House because it's more entertaining.
Watch Peter Holland flash his stick over the puck on the shootout winner!
