The Toronto Maple Leafs entered the season as a Cup favorite. Tonight they lost to the Arizona Coyotes, who play in a rec center called Mullett. Toronto hasn’t beaten Arizona at home in regulation in twenty years.
The humiliation was palpable as fans in Toronto rained down boos on a once-beloved hockey franchise. What follows may be a tough read, so please before reading ask yourself if you are in the right headspace to receive information that could possibly hurt you.
Ex-Caps goalie Ilya Samsonov rode the bench as backup-to-the-backup Erik Kallgren stepped up, saving fifteen shots, which is not a lot of saves, but somehow still not enough.
Toronto dominated the flow, doubling up Arizona in five-on-five attempts, 44 to 22. But all that possession plus nine and a half minutes of power-play time were not enough to defeat this farting clown car of a hockey team that features Travis Boyd as first-line center and Liam O’Brien in the top six.
Here is that victorious lineup:
Image: Coyotes
Ex-Leaf Nick Ritchie opened up scoring for Arizona, soon joined by a goal from Christian Fischer, who has played for the Coyotes for seven years like he’s trying out for the Cenobites.
Down 2-0 after two periods, that’s when Leafs fans began vocalizing.
Ah, but this journey was not over. With two goals in thirty seconds in the third period, suddenly things looked good for Toronto, which is never a good sign for Toronto. In Toronto, things going good is what you call it before things go bad.
Then things unexpectedly went bad when Justin Holl failed a clear during the power play, and a player so cursed he was cast off from Philadelphia, Shayne Gostisbehere, restored Arizona’s lead, an affront to spreadsheets everywhere.
Unable to limit their suffering, with under a minute left the Leafs scored again (Kerfoot) only to see it called back on a hand-pass violation. Such an obscure rule and such a deliciously vicious deployment thereof.
Lawson Crouse, who is good and on Arizona at the same time, scored in garbage time to make the final score – and I am not making this up:
ARI 4
TOR 2
Let’s check in with moneypuck and how they thought the game would go. I’m sure that’ll soften the blow.
You hate to see it.
The Leafs’ record is now 2-2-0, and one of the two games they lost was against the Arizona Coyotes, who are technically a professional hockey team.
