Game 1: Habs 3 Leafs 2

The game was close and could have went either way. The Leafs did well against a cohesive team that had only 1 new player in the lineup. Kreider. Leafs had 4 returning players on their forward lines from last year. A short preseason showed a lack of cohesion. Raddysh looked rusty and made a couple of boneheaded mistakes that ended up in the net. Tanev and McCabe looked good on the back end. OEL and Stecher played fine also. Bob was good, but not great. The Leafs definitely need to work out their forward lines. The Habs looked like a contender tonight, and the Leafs were chasing the game for the last 30 minutes. Tonight’s scores showed a lack of goal-scoring. Although Boston won by 3, they didn’t score until under 5 minutes left in the 3rd. Florida waited to win 1 – 0 against Carolina in the last 3 seconds of overtime. No blowouts so far tonight.

I know lots of the fanbase aren’t happy with this outcome, myself included; I think they need time to gel. Hopefully they can beat the Islanders tomorrow night. I hate it when they have more home games at the start of the season, then lose a few and are chasing all year to get in the playoffs. It happened last year, and they never got close. Marchenko played well tonight, but McKenna was invisible. It’s hard to win when you have 10 new players in your lineup from last year. Hopefully they play better tomorrow night.