Eat Sleep Leafs

He looked like a kid on a Christmas morning.

Back after missing nearly six months, Phil Kessel couldn't stop smiling Tuesday night in his Leafs debut.

What he resembled though was something different.

More precisely, he resembled exactly what was missing.

The explosive speed, the creativity with the puck, the inspired shot. 

Kessel was a model of what the Leafs so desperately needed and what they so desperately lacked in the first twelve games this season.

“Well we brought him here to score," said Ron Wilson with a chuckle following the game, a 2-1 overtime loss to the Lightning.

"What was that?"

"He attempted nineteen shots, ten of them hit the net, seven were blocked and two missed. That’s a pretty good first impression.”

Pretty good indeed, especially when you consider the hype, the anticipation, and the pressure of his debut.

Nearly every time he touched the puck, something happened. Chance after chance went unfulfilled, but they were exactly the kind of chances seldom seen in the last two seasons, the kind of offensive opportunities reserved for the league’s most creative players.

“Look at him today,” said Jonas Gustavsson. “He creates lots of scoring chances and he’s going to score lots of goals if he plays like that. So of course he brings that to our team and is going to make our team better.”

Kessel didn’t score in his debut, but did just about everything else, and that included being on the wrong side of a thunderous check from Matthias Ohlund with the game less than seven minutes old.

“I don’t remember getting hit that hard in a long, long time,” Kessel said with a grin.

And while it was just one game, you’d have to imagine that there was some measure of relief for Brian Burke, a sliver of proof that the acquisition he’d spent so much time defending, had what it takes to play in the bright lights of Toronto.

 

Kessel never cowered, never hid, never looked just to fit in. He had the look of a player who expected to score with every shot.

More nights like that and Leaf fans will see his smile quite a bit more.

-J.Siegel
Follow me on Twitter: jonas640