TORONTO — The Toronto Maple Leafs don’t want to talk about last season.
A victory over the Boston Bruins on Saturday night would go a long way to helping them achieve that goal. While one game won’t completely erase the memory of last year — when Boston won all six games against Toronto by a combined score of 36-10 — it would certainly be a good start.
“Everyone is trying to concentrate on what happened last year, but it doesn’t matter,” Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf said Saturday morning. “It’s a new year and we know that they’re a real good team and you have to respect that. It’s a fresh start.”
Before looking ahead, let’s first gaze backwards. Here are the scores from the six Boston victories over the Leafs in 2011-12: 6-2, 7-0, 6-3, 4-1, 5-4, 8-0.
Yikes.
“We know what happened,” Phaneuf said. “We weren’t happy about it.”
Boston is off to another good start with a 5-1-1 record that tops the Northeast Division.
The Leafs, meanwhile, are trying to rely on hard work and improved defensive play to scratch and claw their way through the shortened season. Coach Randy Carlyle spoke Saturday morning about the need to prove themselves each and every night.
“We’ve got lots of room for improvement as far as records against various teams in the league,” Carlyle said. “I don’t think we want to focus on specifically one team or another. We just have to play a higher brand of hockey against everybody.
“That’s our message.”
However, even new players to the Leafs dressing room were well aware of the franchise’s recent history against Boston.
“This is a big rivalry,” said forward James van Riemsdyk. “It takes a full team rivalry in games like this.”
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A look at the Leafs (4-3-0) ahead of Game 8:
Frazer McLaren has a chance to make quite a first impression with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Not only is the hulking winger expected to suit up two days after being claimed on waivers from the San Jose Sharks, he’ll also be squaring off against former junior rival Milan Lucic of the Bruins. Those two fought on three different occasions in the Western Hockey League and sounded like they might do so again on Saturday.
“I haven’t seen a whole lot of him since then,” McLaren said. “I don’t know how much of the rivalry still stands, but I know how much the Bruins and Leafs don’t like each other.”
Lucic broke into a wide grin when asked about McLaren on Saturday morning.
The Bruins winger noted that the six-foot-five, 230-pound Leafs forward is surprisingly mobile for such a big man. He also mentioned that McLaren holds a rare distinction.
“We had a few tussles back in junior,” Lucic said. “He was the only guy that ever put me on my back. He dropped me the one time. I’ll give him the credit.”
Here’s video from one of the three Milan Lucic-Frazer McLaren in junior: youtube.com/watch?feature=…! — Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) February 2, 2013
Here’s video from one of the three Milan Lucic-Frazer McLaren in junior: youtube.com/watch?feature=…!
— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) February 2, 2013
Even though it was unclear who might come out of the Toronto lineup to make room for McLaren, coach Randy Carlyle made it clear the new addition was going to play.
“We didn’t take him on waivers to sit him in the stands,” Carlyle added.
James Reimer is expected to make his fourth straight start in goal for Toronto against Boston’s Tuukka Rask.
PROJECTED LEAFS LINEUP
Forwards
van Riemsdyk – Bozak – Kessel
McClement – Grabovski – Kulemin
Frattin – Kadri – Komarov
Steckel – Hamilton – McLaren
Defence
Phaneuf – Kostka
Gunnarsson – Liles
Fraser – Franson
Goaltenders
Reimer
Scrivens
Scratches
MacArthur (injured), Brown (injured), Komisarek, Orr.
PROJECTED BRUINS LINEUP
Lucic – Krejci – Horton
Marchand – Bergeron – Seguin
Bourque – Peverley – Kelly
Tardif – Campbell – MacDermid
Chara – Boychuk
Seidenberg – Hamilton
Ference – McQuaid
Rask
Khudobin
Thornton (injured), Paille (injured), Johnson.
ONE-TIMERS
Phil Kessel has just three goals, nine points and is minus-18 in 18 games against his former team … Bruins forwards Nathan Horton and David Krejci are each riding five-game point streaks … In 643 all-time meetings, the Leafs have outscored Boston 1,922-1,909 … Boston’s Jamie Tardif is scheduled to play his first NHL game in his seventh pro season … The Bruins have fought in six of seven games this season … Boston is third in the NHL in penalty killing with a success rate of 93.5 per cent … The Leafs will wear their alternate sweaters for the second time this year … The teams don’t play again until March 7 at Boston … Leafs centre Tyler Bozak will suit up in his 200th NHL game.
QUICK QUOTES
“Right now he’s riding the wave. We want to ride that as long as we can. We hope it’s a tsunami, that’s what we’re looking for. We just don’t want to hit shore with it yet.” — Carlyle on Matt Frattin, who has game-winning goals in consecutive games.
“I don’t like to get too far ahead of ourselves here as far as who’s doing this and who’s doing that and how great we are. We need to settle down and play and become more consistent in all three zones before we start making any great claims of what we are.” — Carlyle.
“I’m moving better than I thought I would be to be perfectly honest.” — Lucic on returning to action after the lockout.
