After three games of pre-season the Leafs find themselves with almost as many wins under their belt as they had in total with Horachek. Babcock was pleased coaching his team to victory at the Air Canada Centre Monday evening versus the Ottawa Senators where the Leafs secured a 4-1 victory. The split club also won in overtime in Ottawa with a final score of 4-3. Toronto visited Montreal last night and came back from a 1-0 deficit to squeak out another win in overtime where Jake Gardiner buried a beautiful pass from Brad Boyes just sixteen seconds into the period on a Leafs power-play .

Of course it’s just pre-season but to say this doesn’t help build the players confidence is nonsense. A guy like Parenteau who is coming off of a buyout season with Montreal scored two power-play goals on Monday night; this is exactly what he needed to regain confidence in his game and scoring ability. Hopefully his pre-season success translates into the regular season and Toronto is able to renew life into the former 67 point player that he was back in 2011-12. Also important to note, Bernier actually looked quite poised in the net for the Leafs in his season debut where he stopped 29 shots which bodes well moving towards puck drop on Oct 7th

How about Mike Babcock behind the Leafs bench? He was definitely engaged, moving up and down the bench like a magician going over fine details of the game and implementing his coaching strategy’s to the players as he gets his feet wet embracing his new role. When asked about his activity behind the Leafs bench, Babcock replied with “I imagine that will be ongoing. There are lots of things we have to fix”. As you can imagine Mike has his work cut out for him since this team lacked structure behind the bench for years as far as I am concerned. As pleased as Babcock was with the outcome of the games he will be hard on the players ensuring they continue to improve. “We were reckless with the puck, a mixture of too cute and too impatient”. I look forward to seeing his progress with the players as the season goes on, especially our young defensemen in Rielly and Gardiner.

Lamoriello watched his new Maple Leafs squad from a private box on the 200 level and Hunter was in management’s press box with some of his personnel. They surely had a lot to take in as there are many new bodies to watch as they try to get the Leafs back on track in the early stages of the rebuild. Fun fact - Toronto has a new and magnificent (10 million dollar) movie screen scoreboard that will be for fans viewing pleasure this upcoming season.

Nylander has been excellent thus far in pre-season, looking bigger, stronger and looks as if his two-way game has improved since last season. Toronto’s first pick from 2014 scored last night in Montreal and was on a line with Marner and Leo Komarov (Uncle Leo). Interesting to point out Nylander also was on the point on one of Toronto’s power plays.

Bernier/Reimer:

Without question Bernier has the upper hand going into the season in regards to the starting goalie position; but by no means is that position locked down as of yet. The Leafs coach is adamant about solidifying a starting goalie out of the gate and doesn’t want split duties throughout the entire season. Babcock wants one of Bernier or Reimer to hands down win the starting job and hold onto it. Toronto starts their regular season with a game on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday which will allow Reimer to get a game in on the back to back and prove his worth. Bernier will likely have a chance to strut his stuff between the pipes in two of the first three games, getting situated for a difficult season ahead.

Babcock will be stern to defenders about doing their jobs and taking care of backdoor plays and other situations around the Leafs net to help out their goaltenders much more this season than in years past. The coach’s mentality here is that the goalie is able to have a better idea of where the shot is coming from and have time to adapt to make the save. Far too often the Leafs have left their goaltender to make far too difficult of a save, or saves. Eliminating the grey area and continuing to enforce structure to the defensive end is certainly something Mike Babcock is striving to improve.

If you recall in the past in Detroit, Babcock has absolutely no issues what so ever playing the hot goalie regardless of their salary or fans/media expectations. Petr Mrazek was able to run away with the starting job over Jimmy Howard who was injured before he was supposed to appear in the all-star game. That proves that the Leafs coach is going to give Reimer a fair shot at stealing the job if Bernier fails to live up to expectations.

Reimer is in the last year of his 2.3 million dollar cap and will be a UFA at seasons end.

Bernier is at the start of his new two-year 8.3 million dollar contract.

The Leafs have Wednesday and Thursday off but do expect some more cuts as the Leafs trim down the training-camp roster. Toronto plays Friday in Buffalo and Saturday at home versus Montreal.

Hopefully you are enjoying pre-season thus far, thanks for reading!

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