Leafs refuse to lose focus

By LANCE HORNBY -- Toronto Sun
By the end of Thursday's win over the Devils, all that was missing inside the Air Canada Centre was a lightly falling snow and Bing Crosby singing White Christmas.

General manager/coach Pat Quinn lavished praise on his first-place Maple Leafs, who responded in kind. Club chairman Steve Stavro made a rare appearance in the dressing room and even wished the media a Merry Christmas.

Ex-team president Cliff Fletcher glad-handed in the pressbox with his former staff. Successor Ken Dryden was chatting amicably with the coach he canned last year, Mike Murphy, who is now with league hockey operations.

After fielding media queries about the team's great first half, captain Mats Sundin was, by five years' experience here, still preparing for a negative aspect of Thursday's game to be tossed at him.

"I'm waiting for you guys to ask what's wrong with the power play," Sundin said with a laugh.

But with a power-play and short-handed goal against the Devils, even special teams are on a roll by Toronto's long-suffering standards.

"We are humans and it's nice to read good things," Quinn said of the pre-Christmas five-game winning streak. "But we've got to fight it (over-confidence and complacency) as we would if things were going the opposite way. We don't want to get too fat and happy."

If Quinn had his choice, perhaps the Leafs' holiday video choices might have been less of Alistair Sim and Jimmy Stewart and more of Mike Peca and Dixon Ward during the 1999 Eastern Conference final when another feel-good Leafs' team met its demise in Buffalo.

"Expectations have been raised with this club," Quinn said. "Last year was last year and we're on a different journey now."

Winger Steve Thomas, injured in that Sabres series and craving a Cup as he plays his twilight seasons in the NHL, was not going to get carried away by the team's success in its first 37 games.

"We don't think about last year too much," Thomas said. "We want to be as creative as last year (when the Leafs led the NHL with 268 goals), but we don't want to rely on Cujo (Curtis Joseph) too much again."

The Leafs, after sacking a handful of players who didn't fare well at crunch time last May, are getting lots of contributions now from younger members of the roster. A number of little things -- such as conditioning, faceoff proficiency and blocked shots -- have made a difference in the team's record.

Against the Devils, the Leafs executed their game plan perfectly to escape New Jersey's trap, not panicking after they fell behind by an early goal.

"Our coaching staff has done a great job preparing us," Thomas said of Quinn and assistants Rick Ley, Alpo Suhonen and video man Paul Dennis. "They've pointed out a lot of weaknesses on the other teams."

Winger Tie Domi says the Leafs' early success will make them bigger targets for opponents in 2000.

"When you're the top team, everyone is gunning for you," Domi said. "We've had a great week. We played back-to-back in Florida, where the heat gets to you if you're not used to playing there, won those two and finished well (against the Devils). Now we'll have a few days off at home and get everyone going again."

The Leafs play in Long Island on Wednesday, before getting ready for a home-and-home series against the Sabres that begins in Buffalo on New Year's Day.

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