The Toronto Maple Leafs are playing back to back nights to start the NHL regular season and after defeating the Montreal Canadiens in what ended up being a controversial game, the team will head to Philly to play the Philadelphia Flyers at the Wells Fargo Center at 7:30 PM on Wednesday.
The Maple Leafs looked impressive on Tuesday night to open the season against Montreal, but things took a bad turn during a fight between George Parros and Colton Orr, as Parros ended up on the ice with a bad injury after the two went down during the brawl, making many wonder why fighting is still allowed in the NFL. James Reimer was in net for the Maple Leafs over the acquired Jonathan Bernier and he continued his solid play from last season and in the playoffs.
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Reimer ended up with 34 saves in the game and Toronto ended up getting goals from Dion Phaneuf, Tyler Bozak, James van Riemsdyk and Mason Raymond, who ended up with the game winning goal. The game was marred by the big fight and the fact that there were multiple fights in the matchup didn't help matters either and some of the intensity was spilled over from last season.
The Maple Leafs got the year started the way they wanted and they have an early lead over the division with two points after getting the win. The team is in a new divisional alignment in the Atlantic division, which now includes more teams, including the Boston Bruins, Buffalo Sabres, Detroit Red Wings, Ottawa Senators, Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers as well as the Montreal Canadiens.
The Flyers are in the new Metropolitan Division and they are bunched with a number of East coast teams, including the New Jersey Devils and the Carolina Hurricanes. The division also has the New York Rangers, Pittsburgh Penguins and the Columbus Blue Jackets as well as the Washington Capitals. The Red Wings and the Blue Jackets have moved from the Western conference to the Eastern conference, while the Winnipeg Jets are more geographically located after moving from Atlanta, as they now are in the Western conference.
The fights involving the two teams got plenty of coverage after the game, especially with Parros being diagnosed with a concussion and after watching the video, there's no doubt that it could have turned out worse than that depending on how he fell. Many came out to decry what happened in the game on Tuesday, with some saying that fighting needs to be outlawed before someone dies or gets seriously injured.
The Flyers open their season at home against the Maple Leafs and then the team will play against Montreal on the road at the Bell Centre, which is where the Toronto and Canadiens game went down. The team made a number of improvements in the offseason, adding Vincent Lecavalier to help with the offense and the team hopes that its new players will provide a spark to the team, which had a bad start last season after dealing with the lockout.
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