Well THAT was scary

Tonight definitely had a Halloweenish feel. We had zombies (Kostitsyn), ghosts (Gomez) and devils (Komisarek). I wasn't fond of the guys masquerading as referees though. They weren't good at all. But anwyay, the Habs got really into the whole thing by wearing their baberpole jerseys too. Scary!

• TSN said that Komisarek said that he and Grabovski were having a conversation about who would get booed the most tonight. I didn't even have to look up at the TV to know that Komisarek had the puck. The crowd was THAT loud.
• Martin curiously decided to play Jaro tonight.....I'm not sure why? 
• Stewie wanted to fight Komisarek. Refs say no. 
• Stewie figures if he can't score then he can at least crash the net. He barreled Vesa right over. 
• Ponikarovsky and Stempniak tallied at the beginning and end of the second period (both PPGs).Nothing to report there.
•  METRO came to our rescue after Ponikarovsky's goal. I WUVS Metro. Okay so Vesa helped by doing this weird standing thing but who cares? I didn't see anyone else throwing pucks at Vesa. 
• The French Marshmallow scored too! Damnit, we'll never hear the end of it. BUT someone should tell him that good things happen when you go to the net. Best game of the season from him. 
• The HMS Hal Gill also had a goal courtesy of Squishy shoving Beauchemin (Squishy shoved Beauchemin, the puck goes off of Beauchemin, Beauchemin goes after Squishy, Vesa falls over and BAM we have a scrum). 
• Somehow the refs deemed it fair to give the Leafs a PP and then we had Stempniak's goal. Meh. 
• Jaro had his solid moments. I really thought he did a good enough job tonight (minus Poni's second goal. He really should have been up higher for that one). 
• Special teams had their moments too. Of complete fail. FIX THIS. 
• Hammer scored in the third without realizing it at first. Oops. 
• Can the Habs stop letting in goals that bounce off their own players? Nobody like it when the puck bounces off two Habs Dmen before bouncing into the back of the net. With a minute to go in the damn game. 
• Also, can we stop singing before the game is finished? BAD KARMA. 
• Jaro stops the Leafs and Vesa fails miserably on two sweet shots by Squishy and Gomer (hi Gomer! Didn't see you all night). Jaro says "YAY!" EP wants to point that he looks really fat in the barberpole jersey. 

Numbery-stat-things...

• There was 34 minutes in penalties assessed tonight. Rather tame, by Habs/Leafs standards. 
• The Habs have taken FOUR delay of game penalties in the last 24 hours. I know the rule sucks, but it's there. Do something about it. 
• I'll stop being mean to Gomer. He won 71% of his faceoffs, tying with Metro for the night. Grabs had the best faceoff % for the Leafs at 62%. 
• Leafs players actually picked up more points than the Habs did. Blame Kaberle. And Grabs. And Bergeron for being the only Habs player to finish the night a -1. 
• Andrei had just 7:32 seconds of ice time (second least amount. Stewie had less but nobody is expecting Stewie to score goals). 
• Squishy had 6 SOG. Most of anyone again tonight. Gio had 5 but I didn;'t find I noticed him a lot tonight. Odd. 
• My favorite stat tonight: Komisarek was on the ice for 3 of the Habs goals. I think he really likes helping us out.

Seriously, whine all you want about the win, but two points is two points. And two points at the expense of the Leafs, is always nice. 

In Juniors news

THEY WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!!!!!!! By shutting out the Rocket too! I was wondering who a couple of the Juniors players where but I'm assuming that they're just hear to replace the sick players. I know Jake was sick, but it looks like Eli (Sherbatov) might be sick too because he's not on the roster and some other random guy that the Juniors already released in August was playing. Missed the whole game because all the radio stations were playing the Habs/Leafs game but yeah. YAY JUNIORS!

In other news: 

• 9 teams playing today had played last night.  
• 3 teams got shutout (Edmonton, Buffalo and St. Louis). 
• The Islanders decided to dress up as a real hockey team. They blanked the Sabres 5-0.
• Pavelec stopped 50 shots en route to beating the Sens this afternoon. FIFTY shots. $%^&. We're playing the Thrashers on Tuesday. 
• Despite outshooting the Flyers 40 to 28, the Whalercanes lost 6-1. OUCH. Sounded like a bloodfest too. 
• Puffy lost his cool as his team lost the game to the Wild. Poor baby. 

Also... a quick note on hits to the head... 

When will the league step up and do something about these headshots? It's been unbelievable the amount that have happened so far. All the sports stations were running absolutely brutal hit on a Kitchener Ranger (OHL) player from last night. He is currently in critical condition in a hospital in Hamilton with skull and facial fractures. This was in the OHL where the players are a lot younger. This kid was just 16. Does someone have to actually die - in any league - before the NHL steps up and does something? If for no other reason, do it for the sake of the kids watching and playing this sport. These kids look at the NHL as the epitome of how to play hockey. And they see guys getting away with these devastating hits.

Hits like these have no place in hockey. Eliminating these types of hits does not make the game "softer". They do nothing to improve the game when players contract life changing and possible career ending brain injuries. The league MUST do something to eliminate them. Standing by, saying that open ice hits like the ones that Mike Richards and Andrew Ladd delivered are "legal" is just wrong. The league must make an effort to protect their players, and if they're unwilling to do that, then at least they should think about the kids who participate in this sport and look to the NHL players as their role models.