The Leafs fell behind early last night in more ways than one. They gave up two goals in the first, a period in which they were heavily outshot by the Penguins who could turn the puck over at will and hold the Leafs in their own zone very easily.

The Leafs had started very well for a couple of shifts, but it wasn't even difficult for Pittsburgh to get this puck and take it down the ice cleanly, enter the zone cleanly with no dump and chase required to get the first goal.

The second goal was a weird bit of business where Morgan Rielly knocked the puck down with a high stick and then it went in off of the Penguins player, who was also trying to knock it down, but seems to have missed it.

Pittsburgh piled on the shots late in the first after they were up 2-0. This is a thing sometimes. The Leafs don't respond with anything much after goals against. Oh, and they had a terrible power play that could not get setup.

Penguins owned the neutral zone and the puck.

This is the review of the second period:

[There was this great dunk tweet by Moneypuck that showed the deserve to win thing, but it's gone now.]

Score adjusting makes the losing team look worse! That's talent. And not the first time this season I've noticed the Leafs doing this. But a check of HockeyViz, who show shot rates by score state, says this is not how they always play. It's very, very early to be chopping up game data into bits like this, so this will even out over the season, but you don't ever want to see a team get worse down by two.

You can get bogged down in a bad period and lose perspective. You can. The team can't afford the luxury of rolling around in the doom and gloom.

And then, but wait... did all that baseball we all watched teach us anything? It ain't over until it's over. You don't give up when it gets a little, okay a lot, stanky.

Big big big play by Robertson who was moved off the top line in a switch with Nylander (see above two goals):

None of that comeback happens without Anthony Stolarz picking up the trash the Leafs were leaving for him in the first two periods.

Leafs win 4-3.

Maybe there's other teams making news, but that game was a lot and that's enough for today. Next game is Wednesday against the Mammoth.

This might be worth a listen:

From The Branches