Watching last night’s Habs vs. Jets game, you couldn’t help but have a bad feeling about tonight. “But Jeff!” you might say “The Habs dominated Winnipeg! And they’re terrible!”. This is true, and that’s exactly why I had the worry. Losing overwhelmingly to a mad team is usually a wakeup call the next day, leaving the blown out team hungry for revenge, no matter who the victim is.

Apparently, the Winnipeg Jets disagree with this theory, and while they allowed fewer and didn’t turn a Danish prospect and opponent into an instant religious figure, the team as a whole somehow played worse overall tonight and left the Leafs to feast on the results.

The night started with a bang, with the prototypical new Leafs play – Lupul and Kessel working together on a goal. This time, it was Kessel’s goal off a slick Lupul feed to give the Leafs the leafs the lead. And then….uhh.. nothing else really happened? Saves were made, but the period went on without penalties.

Moving on from the first period, Tim Connolly started the second period with a bang. Just a minute and a half in, Connolly took a pass from Joey Crabb, and snuck it by Chris Mason for his seventh of the season. Oddly enough, the Jets had not one, but two delayed penalties on the play. As such, Tanner Glass was the only one to head to the box after the goal. Toronto would be unsuccessful on the ensuing powerplay, and the one that followed courtesy of Mark Stuart a few minutes later.

The third period would start just as quickly as the others. Mikhail Grabovski was the lucky forward this time, firing a wrist shot to give the team a 3-0 lead. Andrew Ladd went to the box for roughing five minutes later, giving the Leafs one more opportunity to score on the powerplay. Clarke MacArthur would make no mistake, scoring his 12th of the season. Matthew Lombardi was busted for tripping shortly after, givin the Leafs their first penalty kill of the game. Don’t hyperventalate too much – nothing came out of it, the Leafs slowed down the pace to finish the game, and the Leafs took this one 4-0.

Other Notes

Jonas Gustavsson had a 24 save shutout. I wasn’t happy with starting him tonight, but he found a way to prove me wrong, that’s for sure. Not a lot of spectacular play, but enough to get it done for the second goose egg of his career.

Tim Connolly and Mikhail Grabovski both had multi-point games. Centre depth at work right there.

Phil Kessel now has an absurd 23 goals and 23 assists in just 40 games this season. I think it’s time to say that he’s the real deal this year.

Dion Phaneuf was in a bloody mess late in the game, blocking an Andrew Ladd slapshot. No word on his status just yet. He lead the team in ice time, with 23:35 played.

Carl Gunnarsson, Jake Gardiner, and Keith Aulie all also played 20 minutes.