Toronto Maple Leafs goalie James Reimer (34) stops Los Angeles Kings forward Anze Kopitar (11) during a shoot out in NHL action in Toronto on Sunday, December 14, 2014. The Maple Leafs defeated the Kings.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
Things were going so well hockey-wise, we spent the pregame discussing immunology.
"I just got my shot today," said Leafs coach Randy Carlyle, referring to the NHL's widening mumps outbreak. "They dragged me in. I was the last one. I thought that I had it 58 years ago so I didn't think I'd need another one, but I guess there's a new strain out that they better look after us."
Sounds serious. What's this all about?
"I think it started over in England last year or two years ago. It's something we didn't really hear about," said Stéphane Robidas, snapping on his CDC nameplate.
Are they right? Should we all be stockpiling ammunition and getting mentally prepared to begin slaughtering our neighbours? Just in case.
Well, God knows. If we were any good at science, we'd have real jobs.
Everyone's just making sure to stay well away from everyone else. The usual hugs and gentle caresses between the Leafs and their many admirers in local media have been replaced by amicable, from-across-the-room nods.
It's a bit of a letdown, because we were beginning to come around to the idea that the Leafs might not just be looking good. They might actually be good.
Less than 24 hours after laying a comprehensive beating on the Red Wings, the Leafs were back at work against the Stanley Cup champion L.A. Kings.
The Kings are presently Kingsing through the regular season – looking profoundly unengaged by non-elimination hockey. But they're still the Kings.
"I would say we played the game in two parts," Carlyle said following a 4-3 shootout victory.
He's exactly right. There was a good part and a bad part.
Toronto owned the first period, and came away with a 2-0 lead. The season's surprisingest of a few surprise packages, Mike Santorelli, scored the opener on his 29th birthday. The Leafs are 13-0 in games in which they score first. They are also 1-0 on Mike Santorelli's birthdays.
After all that good early work, they lay down and died at the end of the second. Defenceman Jake Gardiner allowed L.A.'s Justin Williams to walk through him on a one-on-one rush. That the goal probably should have been called back on a high stick didn't seem to matter. It felt like the sort of bad call you deserved, as a form of punishment.
Two more soft goals on either side of the second intermission put Los Angeles into the lead. And you began to think of yourself – this is where the Leafs start coming back to Earth. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.
They've been on a compelling roll since their 9-2 humiliation against Nashville a month ago. That seems like a long time ago, but it doesn't feel like a memory.
They continue to win games in which they've been largely outplayed. Twenty of their 30 games have been at home, far and away the most in the NHL. They'll set out on an onerous two-week, seven-game road swing once the World Juniors ramp up around Christmas.
Everything is going their way, and it doesn't seem sustainable. Hadn't we all agreed this team was puddle-thin and lacking gumption? But it's sustaining – what's more compelling than that?
They managed it again on Sunday, in front of a somnambulent afternoon crowd.
James van Riemsdyk tied it on the power play – which was remarkably fluid and very un-Leaf-like through the whole game.
Having dragged it into overtime, you felt satisfied. That's the real Blue-and-White disease – a poverty of ambition. Toronto strung it as far as the shootout. Joffrey Lupul was the only scorer. Once again, James Reimer put in a strong performance. This town is finally enjoying the correct sort of goalie controversy – one where you don't want to drop the pair of them off at the bus station with fifty bucks and a warning to be gone before sundown.
The Leafs are 9-1-1 since Nashville. They're one win off first place in the Eastern Conference, with a game in hand. Aside from the reassuringly vicious presence of Richard Panik, nothing's really changed. They just carry themselves differently. It's all more purposeful. Randy Carlyle has gone from despair to acceptance to surprise to worry. If they keep winning, he's going to round back to despair again – he's learned not to trust anything in this city.
"I always try to temper my enthusiasm," Carlyle said mournfully. Pity Carlyle when he wins – it's immediately back to the professional ennui.
Given how threadbare these wins can sometimes seem, especially on the stats sheet, do you feel any sense of danger?
"There's always danger," Carlyle said. "Pro sports is about danger."
Hmm. I thought it was about bitterness and grinding disappointment. But unlike Carlyle, I grew up here.
It's difficult to not let that attitude infect what the Leafs are managing at the moment. You can metricize what they're doing to death. From that perspective, they are more lucky than good.
"It's still early in the year, but … we've got room for improvement," Robidas said. "You have to keep moving."
Robidas, an off-season signing, is as close to a disinterested observer as you're going to find in the Leafs' locker room. That does not sound like someone who thinks the current wave is going to keep cresting. He knows that some of this is fortune.
But since luck is all they have to count on, and since this year had been treated like an extended mulligan from the jump, I'll take it. I suspect Robidas will as well.
However it turns out, this team has at least proved that while it may not be one of the NHL's bully boys, it has the wherewithal to keep swinging as it`s going down. And maybe – just maybe – the Leafs can do a good deal more.
Cathal Kelly