A Weekend with the Slugs

It's been an emotional weekend as I'm sure you can pick up from Steve's rantings.

The game last night was... well, weird. I didn't see much of the first two periods, as I was continuing my usual tradition of "not actually watching the Leafs play", but then Jared arranged a get together for the last period of the game and pounds upon pounds of chicken wings. It was us here at BBP along with one raging faggot/Sabres fan (another came later... after the win... wearing a Sabres jersey. Which I can guarantee he put on just as the Sabres won the game, and that he probably would have hidden if the Sabres lost (or, alternatively, if Buffalo still sucked, probably wouldn't even own it).

What I did catch of the game was really weird. Toronto was hanging with Buffalo. That... well, that shouldn't happen. And I guess the only explanation I can come up with for what happened in the third period is that Buffalo realized "hey, what the hell, why is Toronto winning?" and decided to not put up with that. The Leafs completely fell apart. We were sitting there, enjoying our artery-clogging food and the fact that our favourite team was handily winning over arguably the best team in the league (well, Brett wasn't, he stayed kind of quiet. He only really talked to order his food, talk about something non-hockey related, or, interestlingly, praise Toronto. I guess the lesson here is that Buffalo fans are really just Ottawa fans who realize how gay they are for liking Ottawa and wish they were still Toronto fans). As Steve mentioned, there were other (drunken) Leafs fans in attendance; the one guy who was wearing a Toronto jersey kept yelling and carrying on with Jared, who was in his McCabe jersey.

Then, all of a sudden, everything went to hell. I honestly cannot explain, rationalize, or even describe what the hell happened. Everything went wrong. Everything. Four unanswered goals. Goals on consecutive shots. Brett coming out of the closet and trash talking the Leafs. The other guys in the bar got up and left. We saw one goal and thought it was the replay of the previous one, only it was actually a new goal. It was horrible. No one player, event, or magical elixir deserves the blame - everyone shit the bed in the last 15 minutes. The worst part is that we weren't even surprised.

So now we're into the second game, midway through the second period, and the Leafs are up 3-1 again. Devereaux is on speed this weekend, Tucker's having a beast of a game with two goals (making up for the horrible game he had last night, I guess), Raycroft is playing great, and the crowd is really into it. Hell, Ryan Miller even got chased from the game, and we got to see Ty Conklin. Ty Conklin.

Can Toronto win this game? I don't know now. Before last night, based on the first half of tonight's game I would say they definitely could. The Leafs are in charge out there. But last night we had a 4-1 lead and that went to hell, so I'm nervous for how the rest of this goes. We need the win, no question. Especially with both New York teams winning earlier today, Montreal having Washington on the bill for tonight, and Carolina inexplicably leading San Jose. As it is, we're three points out of a tie for eighth. Letting Montreal and Carolina take points while Toronto gets none will be a complete disaster.