Strong start a good omen

By AL STRACHAN -- Toronto Sun It's remarkable how often a team's performance in its home opener reflects the season to come.
If the trend holds true for the Toronto Maple Leafs, they are in for another good season, following their 4-0 win over the Boston Bruins last night.
Last year, to the shock of many fans, the Leafs played a great opener, knocking off the defending Stanley Cup champions, the Detroit Red Wings. By the time the season had ended, the Leafs had made their first trip to the final four of the playoffs since 1994.
Last night, they looked almost as good as they did in last year's opener, even though the calibre of opposition wasn't as high.
To Boston Bruins general manager Harry Sinden, the most important position on any team is treasurer, and when it came to a choice between staying competitive and maintaining the Bruins' considerable profit, Sinden opted for the latter.
Sinden is not one of the most progressive people in hockey and longs for the days when players earned less than he himself spends on one good European scouting trip. Even more than that, though, he longs for the days of general managers like George Maguire who, back in 1978, gave him a first-round draft pick for Ron Grahame.
Sinden converted the pick into Raymond Bourque, and Grahame headed for the relative obscurity of the West Coast where he could spend his time teaching his son to play goal.
He did a good job. John Grahame, playing his first game in the National Hockey League, made a series of sparkling saves for the Bruins before the Leafs' offensive steamroller flattened him.
With a 16-shot barrage in the first period, the Leafs built a 3-0 lead, a fact which had nothing to do with the performance of Grahame who, if memory serves correctly (which is not always the case these days) made more great saves in one period than his dad made in his career.
No doubt Sinden was praying that the kid would stand on his head so that he could threaten free-agent goaltender Byron Dafoe with whom he can't come to terms.
His prayers were answered. Grahame allowed a goal when Mats Sundin was given three shots from the edge of the crease -- a highly unusual development for anyone playing the Bruins. Igor Korolov put another one in off his body and Mike Johnson put a bouncing puck past Grahame on a shot that not a goalie in the league could have stopped.
In other words, the three goals were a reflection of the Leafs' play, not Grahame's.
But one answered prayer wasn't enough. Not long ago, Boston coach Pat Burns said that goaltending is 80% of the game -- unless you don't have it, in which case, it's 100%.
But even great goaltending doesn't provide scoring and Sinden is doing battle on that front as well, having walked away from the arbitrator's settlement for Dmitri Khristich, the Bruins' top goal scorer last season.
So with their top goaltender and their best sniper out of the lineup in order to allow Sinden to live up to his self-imposed budget, the Bruins weren't much of a battle for the Leafs.
But even so, Burns usually has the Bruins slowing down the opposition and playing their dump-and-chase game. That they couldn't come close to that game is explained only partly by the absence of Dafoe and Khristich.
The Leafs, who played a high-tempo game and hit the openings well last season, appeared even more adept in that regard last night.
While Burns loves the up-the-boards style, the Leafs prefer to hit the seams and break out up the middle. It's a great style to watch, and with so many teams blocking the lanes along the boards, there's lots of room for a team with speed to capitalize.
That was the Leafs last night, a team with speed and the willingness to use it -- and off to yet another good start.

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