Phil Of The Future Past: Kessel Finally Helps Maple Leafs Out Over Preds 4-3

Readership,

Well would ya look at that?  Maybe it was Kessel's dream to boot-scoot at the Wild Horse once Poile made the move to bring him to Nashville...and he didn't pull that trigger...and tonight was payback. Or maybe we didn't play a full 60-minute game against one of the worst teams in the league and we lost fair and square.  The "hot" Canadian teams, piece of cake [editor's note: due to hosting a multi-birthday party last Friday, I didn't get to fully pay attention or blog about the Calgary game - I'll I'm saying is...give Ellis the respect he deserves for shutting them out and keep on saving up for your customized Hornqvist jersey] - we'll bring it, but the Toronto "Make Beliefs" (as my co-worker called them today when a fella walked by in that distinct blue jersey)? It's like "Casey At Bat" with our boys sometimes, and tonight was one of those times.

I know it's only fair to hang Pekka out to dry like our D did to Ellis last year, but now's not the time or the place (save it for the off-season, Klein, Hammer - those "-3"s don't look too good on your daily report cards, fellas).  Franson, on the other hand, had a goal and an assist, so once again the newbies are handling their own rather well.  Dogboy (Jones) notched another one and Goc earned his double-digit in goals for the year - players that are "doing it right" and do as much as they can with the minutes they get.

Not that you can really fault him, but isn't it strange that whenever Capt'n Arny comes back from an injury, we generally lose that first game back?  Thursday is an important road game against a team who wasn't even easy to beat when they were awful, the Phoenix Coyotes -  let's hope we can at least keep getting those road wins instead of doing our best Blues impersonation at our own barn.

Cheers.