We can all thank Tomas Kaberle and Mats Sundin for helping us narrowly avoid panic in the streets.
Their work in overtime on Saturday gave the Toronto Maple Leafs their first win of the NHL season, a 4-3 come-from-behind victory over the Montreal Canadiens. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Thanksgiving dinners were saved from becoming nasty family brawls if the season had begun with three losses in a row.
Hey, don't laugh. It was already getting ugly out there. There was that headline in a Toronto newspaper after the Leafs lost two in a row to the Ottawa Senators - Wait 'Til Next Year.
So the question of the night was, aren't you guys happy to "finally" get a win, finally being four days into the season?
"Yeah, finally," Sundin said with a sardonic smile. "Actually, of the three games, this might have been our worst one, and we won it."
Sundin can be forgiven for being mightily sick of the "finally" question. He's been hearing that adverb since mid-March when he pulled to one goal shy of Darryl Sittler's record of 389 goals as a Maple Leaf. By the time he finished the final 20 games of the 2006-07 season with one goal and then went one game into this season before tying Sittler, Sundin was a mite touchy about the word.
He didn't get a goal to set a franchise record on Saturday, but he did have three assists, moving one point behind Sittler for another record, most points as a Maple Leaf. Sundin now has 915.
For a long time, though, it looked like a panic situation. The Leafs were down 3-1 and skating so sluggishly against the Habs that head coach Paul Maurice broke up his lines in the second period. Jason Blake and Sundin were separated, and the captain was reunited with last season's linemates, the Twin Towers of Nik Antropov and Alexei Ponikarovsky, while Blake was played with Matt Stajan and Alex Steen.
It wasn't long before Sundin set up Ponikarovsky for a goal and the two combined again in the third period for the tying goal. Then Sundin set up Kaberle for the winner, and it was, of all things, a power-play goal, which broke an 0-for-17 string. Yeah, finally.
As this was being written, it was hard to say exactly what the reaction of the local hockey nuts will be. For all we know, today's headline could proclaim, Cup Is In The Bag.
Three games is a little thin as a base for conclusions about the rest of the season, but there are some things that are shifting into focus.
The most encouraging sign is goaltender Vesa Toskala. He looks nothing like the fellow who blundered his way through the exhibition season.
For the second game in a row, Toskala kept the Leafs in the game when it was necessary. For example, after Ponikarovsky tied the score with his second goal, Toskala made a big save on winger Chris Higgins. Then he stopped Mark Streit just after Alexei Kovalev scared everyone in the Air Canada Centre silly when he hit the post in overtime.
Maurice, though, was not about to declare Toskala his starter for the rest of the season. Andrew Raycroft will be seen again. "Our goal is to have one of our two goalies hot all the time," Maurice said, adding that he does not plan to wear either of them out.
The power play remains a concern. The game-winner may have come with a man advantage, but the power-play unit did not look impressive once again. This may change, however, once Blake and Sundin get the hang of playing together. Maurice said their breakup was not permanent.
But what Maurice liked most of all, even more than Toskala's performance, was the backbone his players showed. He didn't always see that last season, and he used Stajan's sprawling block of a shot in overtime as an example.
"For me, that's the difference in this hockey team from last year," he said. "They understand a little more what they have to do to win."
There are still a few too many warts on the Leafs' game to declare them bound for the postseason - the defence still needs to improve in its own end - but there is no reason to panic just yet.
That can wait until later this week.
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