My 3
1st Star Lyon, the guy was unconscious, stopped everything and owned the deuce
2nd Star. 34 really has the motor running now and with 8 games left I'd say a lock to hit 40 with an outside chance of dare I say 45! Whatever the final number winds up being he has to start playing the best hockey of his life for the next two months or more.
3rd Star. 78 T.J.Brodie super steady, he made the right plays got the puck up ice without a whole lot of loss of possession all in all the Leafs defenders as a group had decent games w/o too many blunders. As a group I think they'll be alright in the playoffs, they have some physicality now and some offense and they'll need both in bucketfulls coming up
I was singing the praises all season long, I was so impressed with how his game had finally blossomed, how he was in charge when he was carrying the puck, how he had started using his team-mates, how he had started sacrificing himself to make the best play instead of the best play that suited him, how he had stopped taking shifts off. I'd really like to see that guy back!
Will is vitally important to the Leafs success, especially when he's displaying a full 200 foot Pasta like game that he is definitely capable of, capable because we've all seen it this year.
I'm not going to take a strip off of him for that mind numbingly poor decision in OT that hung his team-mates out to dry and gifted a point to the Panthers. It's just that he can't do that anymore, that's a rookie error. It was ill conceived and selfish, he could have done something with it, but he didn't. Enough said.
Come back Will and come back soon, you have a shot at 40 goals and could still hit 90 points and in doing so give the Lightning a lot more to think about, more maybe then they can handle, but you gotta be that guy we saw up until about the 60 game mark. If you're just taking a bit of a rest then it's cool, but you've only got 8 games as your runway, thrill us Will.
