Jonas Gustavsson throws himself on the puck like a doughboy falling on a grenade: as if the lives of his trench-mates depend on it.

This is the stuff of combat – what the Toronto Maple Leafs had been missing in a backstop, a netminder who literally had their back.

In a fairer world, the team would have more to show for that stop-frame moment, on the overall effort of Monday’s mano-a-mano with the Buffalo Sabres. But here, as it turns out, was evidence of the Leafs’ misfortune in a microcosm.

A spectacular goaltending episode for Gustavsson midway through the second period of Monday night’s game had the young Swede hurling his body at rubber, just one of many heart-thumping scrums around the Leaf crease all evening. But the puck squirted loose, no Toronto skater could control the bouncing bugger, and Gustavsson, though lithe and limber with split-leg lunges at either post, inadvertently knocked the disc into the net in a deflection that went post-skate-twine.”

Click here to read the full article – By Rosie DiManno of Toronto Star

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To the pantheon of great Montreal Canadiens please welcome … Tom D’Agostini, Jay Leach and Tom Pyatt?

Hey, you work with what you have, and the Habs are trying to stay afloat near .500 with a patchwork roster that has leaned on a number of callups for injured starters.

That will put them at something of a disadvantage again tonight when they play the near-healthy Maple Leafs at the Bell Centre.

Names such as Brian Gionta, Scott Gomez, Andrei Markov and Andre Kostitsyn have been shelved in recent days.

“We’ve taken a beating lately,” said ex-Leaf defenceman Hal Gill, who himself is trying to make it back from a hairline foot fracture by tonight.

Click here to read the full article – By Montreal Gazette

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