Leafs seem lost without Sundin

By AL STRACHAN -- Toronto Sun Two teams without their stars played a predictable game last night. They were cautious. They were tentative. As a result, the affair cranked up some big numbers on the boredom scale.
The Toronto Maple Leafs finally came back to take a 3-2 victory over the Florida Panthers in a game that could have gone either way, but should serve as a good lesson for the Leafs.
They should have noticed that they can't let themselves react to the absence of Mats Sundin the way the Panthers reacted to the absence of Pavel Bure.
The Panthers played far too cautiously, even though they have some decent offensive players -- such as Viktor Kozlov, Ray Whitney, Oleg Kvasha and the rookie who kicked off his National Hockey League career with a pair of goals last night, Ivan Novoseltsev.
"That's why we called a timeout there after we tied the game at 2-2," Panthers coach Terry Murray said.
"The next two shifts were like we had never been in that scenario before. We were looking for the 70- or 80-foot passes; we were over-handling the puck and kept turning back.
"We have to settle down. We have enough experience now on this club with the younger guys who have been here for four or five years to take control, let the game unfold, just execute, play the system. Whenever that happens, you're going to find that opportunities will present themselves."
There were times in the game -- like most of the first period, for example -- when the Leafs were guilty of the same indiscretions. They seemed lost without Sundin and were playing with far too much caution.
In fact, the first period was highly reminiscent of Mayor Mel Lastman's speech at the 2000 all-star luncheon on Tuesday -- stumbling, halting and full of errors. And embarrassing.
Sergei Berezin, for example, spent much of the period labouring under the delusion that he could stick-handle through the entire Florida team.
Actually though, that might be a bit unfair. He did make one beautiful tape-to-tape pass -- his first of the season. Granted, it went to Chris Wells of the Panthers, but let's not be picky.
"It's still a team game," Leafs general manager/coach Pat Quinn said after the game, making a point that Berezin would do well to heed. "No one guy ever won the Stanley Cup unless it was a goaltender."
But as the game went on, the Leafs got better and took advantage of the fact that the Panthers, who hadn't capitalized on their earlier chances, also were making mistakes.
"We had plenty of opportunities on the power play," Murray said. "I thought there should have been a point out there for us."
With the score tied 2-2, Yanic Perreault picked a good time to get his first goal of the season, tipping Danny Markov's shot past Florida goalie Sean Burke.
And Perreault and the newly returned Alyn McCauley did a magnificent job putting the Leafs in possession on faceoffs last night. Perreault won 60% of his faceoffs, usually an impressive mark. But McCauley checked in at a whopping 75%.
It was a scrambly performance for the Leafs, certainly not one to be proud of. But there were some bright aspects.
"We got challenged and found a way to win," Quinn said. "We'll think about this game for a number of those sorts of reasons."

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