Leafs raring to go

If it's true what they say, that practice makes perfect, then the Calgary Flames are in a lot of trouble Saturday night.

That's because the Toronto Maple Leafs have done nothing but practice for the past five days, since defeating the Ottawa Senators 6-5 to run their early season record to 2-0 last Saturday night.

The Leafs took last Sunday off and then went to Trenton, Ont., where they participated in three practices before huge and revolving crowds at the RCAF Flyers Arena and also took part in team-building exercises. The past two days have been spent training at the MasterCard Centre in Etobicoke.

Suffice it to say the players - as well as the coaching staff - are eager to get back to playing games.

"You want to play games," said Leafs coach Ron Wilson. "This has been a long week. I heard what (Detroit coach) Mike Babcock said and they hadn't played since Saturday until they played Thursday night; he said he was sick of practice and he was sure the players were sick of practice, too. Well we had two more days off than the Red Wings did. You can only practice so much. I thought we were pretty creative in our practices this week; none of the practices were the same and yet we accomplished a lot of the things we set out to do."

The Leafs have a rather weird schedule with their first five games of the 2011-12 season at home. After that they embark on a four-game road trip. For now, though, their only focus is on the Flames who got off to a lousy start, losing their first two games, and then held a players-only meeting before beating Montreal 4-1 Thursday. It is thought to be the earliest in the season an NHL team has ever conducted a players-only meeting. Regardless, Wilson said his team must be ready for battle come puck drop after a week off from games.

"Calgary has been playing so we have to simplify the game early until we find the tempo of the game," the coach said. "No matter what you do in practice - and we have worked hard - a game tempo is entirely different. The hits mean something and a mistake means something. You can get away with a mistake in practice. We've got to get pucks in behind their defence and establish our forecheck early."

Speaking of the forecheck, that has been one of the central focuses for the Maple Leafs during practice this week. It is an area of the game they are bound and determined to improve upon.

"We want to get our forecheck going better than it has been," said winger Joffrey Lupul, who was a big part of Toronto's opening two victories registering a goal and three points with a plus-3. "I think a lot of our goals come off the rush. We're a dangerous team that way because of our speed, but we're looking to also become dangerous off the forecheck, too. We do have some smaller forwards, but those guys are quick. There's no reason why we shouldn't be able to get in there and be an effective forechecking team."

Added teammate Clarke MacArthur: "We've been trying to get our forecheck routes down. That's pretty important. You dump the puck in and go get it, but if guys aren't in the proper position, they can skate right out of the zone. We need to get better at that... and get everybody on the same page in terms of our routes."

MacArthur will make his season debut against Calgary Saturday night. The veteran left winger is coming off a career year during which he scored 21 goals and 62 points in 82 games and was rewarded with a handsome two-year, $6.5 million contract, but he was suspended for Toronto's first two games for an illegal hit to the head of Detroit's Justin Abdelkader during the pre-season. It was a relatively innocent looking play, but one the NHL is trying to eliminate from the game because of the number of serious head injuries players are suffering.

MacArthur told sportsnet.ca during training camp he is determined to prove last year's breakout year was no fluke and he's anxious to get his season underway.

"I'm excited," he said following practice Friday. "I hope I'm up to game speed. I've been working at it. If I'm not feeling 100 per cent Saturday then for sure I will be on Monday or Wednesday."

Maple Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf said the players were all pumped during practice Friday about the fact they were finally close to playing again. As much as the time put the breaks on their early-season momentum, Phaneuf elected to accentuate the positive…as a good captain will do.

"I think it was really good for us to have this time to work on some of the things that we wanted to get better at," Phaneuf said. "Training camp is not that long if you really look at it. You're playing a lot of games and you've got a lot of guys. When you really look at training camp in terms of trying to learn and work on systems, you can only do so much.

"Now that we're down to our team and a number that you can work with I think it was a really good week that we got to work on systems stuff. There was a lot of teaching. We used the week off in the right way. We rested; we went to Trenton and did some team building, which was great. When we were there we worked and practiced every day."

Wilson said his approach to the game against the Flames will be a little different compared to if his team had played games this week.

"Everybody will be playing early and we'll go from there," he said. "You shorten up your shifts if you can and roll it as quickly as possible."

NOTES: Joffrey Lupul was asked about the controversial fight celebration by his former teammate, Arron Asham, of the Pittsburgh Penguins who knocked down Washington's Jay Beagle during a fight Thursday, and then made hand gestures as he skated to the penalty box. Asham apologized following the game. "I don't know if Ash knew how hard he hit the guy," Lupul said. "He kind of turned around right after. I played with Ash and he's a great guy. I bet you he feels worse than anyone about it. I saw his interview right after the game and I thought he said the right things. He's a good guy and a good teammate. I bet you he feels bad today."

Veteran hockey columnist Mike Brophy will cover the Toronto Maple Leafs for sportsnet.ca for the 2011/12 season.