Leafs v. Avalanche: Pre-Game Thoughts

The Avalanche pay the ACC a visit on the back of two straight losses and apparently neither one was very pretty. Jose Theodore has had a rough go of things over the past two games and tonight should be no different considering his 5-10-2 (with three ties pre-shootout) in 23 appearances against Toronto. The Leafs are averaging almost 40 shots a game so if Propecia doesn't bring his 'A' game this could be a third straight high-scoring affair. The Leafs have lost the top spot in team scoring to the Sabres after last night's 9-1 crushing of the Flyers which has already led to some blood-letting. Here's hoping for a matching outburst to bolt us back into the lead!

Tonight, Mats Sundin will be honoured by the club for scoring his 500th goal. He has already gotten a nice pair of cufflinks which is nice but, along the lines of Bitter Leaf Fan's thoughts, maybe Canadian citizenship would be the greatest gift.

Injury Watch
Michael Peca will be in the line-up which will hopefully mean that we will see a much better defensive effort from the second line. Nik Antropov and Ben Ondrus are both still making their way back from the IR. Not that either one of them will drop back into forward lines that are starting to click. It will be interesting to see what happens to both once they are completely healthy. I would imagine that they would each get a two week conditioning stint at the Ricoh. As for the defencemen, no news on Carlo but Kronwall skated and it hurt a lot. It seems that with the time he has taken to return from an ankle sprain that he might have the dreaded 'high ankle sprain', a condition which is notoriously tough to recover from fully.

Predictions:
The Leafs will again frustrate with less than 60 minutes of effort but will still emerge victorious. Toronto hockey fans will get to see former St. Mike's Majors deity Peter Budaj when he comes in to relieve a shell-shocked Joey T.

6-2 Leafs: Mats (2), Tucker, McCabe, Steen, Peca