Tuesday, February 21, 2012

The Leafs' goaltending is getting pretty frustrating


The 4-3 overtime loss can't be blamed entirely on Leafs goalie Jonas Gustavsson. The defense was making those all too familiar mistakes - leaving opponents uncovered, giving away the puck or falling down on plays. There were so many odd man rushes in this game you would have thought the Leafs were playing one more short all game long.

But the goaltending was exceptionally frustrating. Gustavsson would make a couple of fabulous saves to bail out his defense and then shortly after give up a soft goal.

The second Devils goal scored by David Clarkson wasn't much of a shot but it got through Gustavsson's legs anyway.



Then the Leafs goalie makes a series of saves like this one on Petr Sykora to allow the team to come back and tie the game



Then he lets a shot from Alexi Ponikarovski through his legs to give the Devils the lead again.



Then he is brilliant through the third period including this amazing save on a breakaway by Ilya Kovalchuk which allows Phil Kessel to tie the game again with the goalie pulled.



Perhaps the worst goal of the night had to have been the game winner by Mark Fayne who shot the puck from the point. The shot was going wide of the net but Gustavsson who tried to block the shot had it go off his pads through his legs again into the net.



I've said it over and over again, you can't make the playoffs without solid goaltending.

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