Congratulations and some other things

I am very happy tonight cause the Leafs won Game 7 against the Sens. I also feel very bad for the Senators. They were the better team in this series. They outhit the Leafs, outskated the Leafs and outhustled the Leafs. However - they didn't outscore the Leafs and that's primarily because of one person - Ed Belfour. He is definitely the Leafs MVP so far.

The Senators are a solid young team. Lalime had a bad game tonight - let in 2 SOFT goals that really proved to be the difference. I don't know if I can question their heart. I can't imagine that all those guys don't wanna win really badly... Looking at them and listening to them in the post game interviews - guys like Mike Fischer, and Todd White - those are guys that feel really bad. Hossa had a great series but other than that - where were their snipers? Smolinski, Bondra, Havlat, Bonk and Alfredsson combined for 1 goal in the series - that is a major problem. (That said - several of the Leafs big guns...Mogilny, Francis, Antropov and Renberg didn't have anything in this series). All in all though...Ottawa is a good team that ran into a hot goalie and got beat. 4 years out of the last 5 - they've been eliminated by Toronto. That must be tough to take.

As for Toronto - I am a diehard fan and I felt like they played a pretty solid game tonight. I still think that they can play a lot better though. One thing that is very evident is that they miss Sundin. When you look at the powerplay - there really is no flow. I used to think that it was driven by Leetch and McCabe but now I realize that it's really Sundin who makes thing click and makes those nifty passes. Also, the intangibles he brings as captain are great. I think he'll play in the next series...just not sure when. Francis should be on the 3rd or 4th line. He is a solid player and I'm sure a good addition to the dressing room but he shouldn't be playing 15 - 20 minutes per night.

With Philly coming up...I think that the Leafs have a chance to kill some skeletons from their closet. This year they were 1 and 3 against the Flyers and outscored something like 20 - 3 in 4 games. Belfour is going to have to continue being the man and the Leafs are going to have to shapen up on the Defensive end.

Great character win tonight...let's keep the momentum going into Thursday night.

So in the end - all the teams I wanted to win in the Game 7's were victorious. Now I am cheering for the Habs, Leafs, Flames and whoever in the next round with a Leafs - Flames Stanley Cup Final. We can all dream, can't we???