Saw the second and third periods, and the overtime too.  Some thoughts:

• J.S. Giguere needs to be tied to the crossbar.  I’m not harshing on Jiggy in general;  he made a great save in the OT on Lecavalier’s quasi-breakaway.  I’m not even talking about the play in OT where he chased after a loose puck after Stalberg turned it over up ice.  I know that he pretty much had to race for that puck, though the Leafs were lucky that the Lightning couldn’t hit a wide open cage when his clearing attempt was cut off.  In the second and third periods though, he handled the puck like Tiger Woods handles an Escalade. (Thank you, I’m here all week, please don’t forget to tip your server). Bottom line:  though Jiggy has played reasonably well and has been a vast improvement over Vesa “I Wouldn’t Have Thought That Had a Chance” Toskala, the more I see Giguere out to get stick on puck, the more I think I am in favour of the trapezoid rule;
• Nikolai Kulemin is money, baby.  Dollars, pesos, rubles, you name it, he is cash money.  That is all;
• Loved the game Dion Phaneuf played.  Carl Gunnarsson too;
• It’s important not to read too much into this win over the Lightning – beating a playoff bubble team that has about as much success outside of Florida as pink and green aluminum siding – but the Leafs showed speed, determination and passion yet again.  This team is beginning to believe that they can win games with the present collection of personnel.  They’re wrong about that, but it’s a step in the right direction and when the overall talent level is improved a little, up front especially, that little bit of confidence can go a long way towards creating a dangerous team.

All in all, it was another performance that, regardless of its defensive warts, proved that the Leafs might be accused of having questionable talent, but can’t be accused of exhibiting minimal effort.

As for the broadcast crew, I noticed that for the second time in as many games Joe Bowen was unable to correctly  distinguish between a Leaf defenceman and a Leaf goaltender.  This time, he has Francois Beauchemin making a save on Vincent Lecavalier OT quasi-breakaway.  I took a lot of crap from Joe Bowen fans as a result of yesterday’s post;  again I say that I’m a Joe Bow fan myself, but I think we’re entitled to expect him to be able to articulate the name of the Maple Leaf netminder with some degree of regularity and reliability at this point in the season.  Watch the YouTube clip below.  The first segment shows Giguere chasing the loose puck after Stalberg’s turnover;  Bowen gets this bit right.  In the second segment, though, rather than Jiggy he has other French guy Francois Beauchemin making the save on Lecavalier.  Again, I’m not saying this means Joe Bowen is a bad broadcaster who doesn’t deserve to be on TV. I am saying that he’s gotta bring his game up a little bit, though.

Typically, fans are concerned that their professional heroes have given up and are going through the motions;  team management typically attempts to assuage these fears by stressing that players are auditioning for jobs for the next season.  They commonly also offer hope that the team is using the remaining games as a developmental exercise – setting specific goals and trying to learn how to win by achieving those goals, regardless of their ultimate factual irrelevance.

Happily for Toronto Maple Leafs fans, it would seem that the Leaf players are buying in to this narrative for the most part.  The Blue and White put in a mostly spirited effort against a depleted Bruins club that has given them fits this year, eventually prevailing in overtime on a goal by Nikolai Kulemin.

So no worries about anybody going through the motions in Leaf-land, right?  At least for one night?

Well, not quite.  The television broadcast crew that brought us the game on Sportsnet last night had some real difficulties.  In particular, Joe Bowen and Greg Millen seemed to be having an inordinate amount of difficulty keeping Jonas Gustavsson and Carl Gunnarsson straight.  It’s true that both men are Swedish and both are relatively new additions to the Leaf team whose last names begin with the letter “G”.  Really, though, is it too much to ask that the crew whose job it is to know about these players could, by the time game number 66 rolls around, reliably distinguish between the team’s much-hyped young goaltender and a defenseman who has pleasantly surprised?  Nevertheless, throughout Tuesday night’s game, Bowen and Millen continuously tripped over the Gustavsson/Gunnarsson identification.

This unfortunate difficulty manifested itself most notably late in the second period with the Bruins leading 2-1.  Following a faceoff in the Bruins’ zone, Carl Gunnarsson directed a shot at the Bruins’ goal that found the twine, tying the game at twos.  Regrettably, Joe Bowen attributed this goal to Jonas Gustavsson – the Leafs’ goaltender.   Check out the clip (from YouTube) below: