Happy Sunday, everyone, there is more hockey today.

At the WJC, Sweden plays Switzerland at 1pm, and we can hope Victor Johansson plays in this one.

Yesterday, Ben Danford and team Canada played a tight game against Latvia, where the most exciting thing in the first two periods was Danford's double minor for high sticking. It was more or less an accident and still a bad thing to do.

Canada needed overtime to beat the very determined Latvians. Danford played less due to his four-minute minor, a five-minute Canadian power play and a crushing need to score all game. I assume Zayne Parekh is young enough to have survived his 22+ minutes.

In the game on opening night Canadian players did some bullshit things both in warmups, during the game and after. They made Hockey Canada apologize for them. While I like Mark Hunter's team and Dale Hunter's coaching, this makes them look like the team runs the show, not them.

In later action, this was a very scary moment:

Today, Sweden plays Switzerland at 2pm – no guarantees Victor Johansson plays – and Canada has an off day.

In news:

Slava Peksa celebrates the win in a nine-round shootout

About last night...

First, Elliotte Friedman reported in the intermission segment that Peter DeBoer contacted Craig Berube to tell him there is nothing to any rumours or speculation that the Leafs want to hire him to replace Berube.

And now the bad news, William Nylander left in the second period on a play that seemed to affect his knee.

Onto the game:

The Leafs scored twice in a row on the power play, and I'm ready to find the least experienced AHL head coach to make him head coach of the Leafs. Obviously this is the way.

The groups were reworked as to who was on which unit, but also who was where. What this can do is force players to think about their own play and possibly realize on their own where their shortcomings have been. The top unit seemed more geared to puck movement, something very lacking in the last while. Time will tell if it's a real improvement.

At five-on-five, the Leafs did not dent the generally excellent Ottawa Senators puck control in the first period and they didn't defend spectacularly well either. Don't take that as harsh judgement, they were lively, quick on the puck and looked fully engaged all down the lineup. You can't demand they win every five-minute segment.

Phil Myers created a Senators goal in an amazing fashion. Basically he fell down, and yet that wasn't the half of it.

Bobby McMann got the lead back while playing on the top line.

Troy Stecher popped the puck back in the offensive zone as he went off on a change, and the Matthews line kept it going until it came to a stop in the net. And chased Linus Ulmark.

And then Nick Robertson made it 5-2. It all happened in an eyeblink and the game was only half over.

The Leafs drew more than even in Corsi % and Expected Goals % as the Senators turned to tough-guy agitation as they were getting beat. The second was not just a bad goalie period.

Ottawa scored off the first shift in the third period, so the Leafs got to have a go at coming back from a fairly poor five-on-five first period ✔️and then persevering through that sort of setback another ✔️as it turned out.

Ottawa scored again on a shot from Tim Stützle that deflected off the screen, and this was officially an Ottawa game. Never easy to put an end to.

Matt Knies had a thought about that.

Okay, someone scored again, who? Oh right, Ottawa, and it was 6-5 Leafs.

It's hard to describe the final 10 minutes. Momentum is usually an illusion – okay I'm being polite, it always it – but no one seemed to have it. And it felt like either team could win it at every moment in the final minutes.

And here's the thing, you hypercritical people, the Sens have been way, way, expletive way better at five-on-five this year than the Leafs. This was a step on the road to playing like the Leafs should, no matter the result. Buck up, the road to redemption is not paved to a mirror smoothness.

JT woke up from the turkey coma and said, wtf, guys, let’s win this.

And so they did. A Holiday Fable. 7-5 Leafs.

That's all for today, if you, like me, had the original schedule, today's game is really at 7, not 5. Whew.

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