Old Habits Die Hard.

Coming into tonight's game, the Leafs were looking to their newly remodelled defence to help the penalty kill and improve from last season. They were looking for some toughness and some solid play from the goaltender.

However, not everything went as desired. Mike Komisarek spent 15 minutes in the box and was sitting on his butt when the Canadiens scored the first goal and the late tying goal in the third period. Komisarek was brought in to help the penalty kill, but it is hard to have him helping out when he is the one in the penalty box. Francois Beauchimen looked too eager to jump into the rush and was constantly out of position, leaving his defensive partner Luke Schenn out to dry on many occasions. In the early parts of the game, the Leafs showed a bit of a mean streak with some big hits and fights from Colton Orr and Jay Rosehill. As the game progressed, however, Montreal began to outmuscle the Leafs.

In goal, Vesa Toskala was not great, but he was not helped by the play of his defence in front of him.

Were the new Leafs a little too eager or excited? Hopefully that is the reason why they were repeatedly out of position and why the Leafs blew a late 3-2 lead and wound up giving Montreal the extra point in overtime.

Some positives do come from the 4-3 OT loss. The Leafs powerplay looked good with Stajan scoring twice. In fact, the line of Blake-Stajan-Stalberg were creating scoring chances throughout the game. Tomas Kaberle looked like his fantastic self, making a great play on Stajan's first goal. Another positive is that the Leafs outshot Montreal by a wide margin. Carey Price put in a great performance and likely saved the game for his team. The Leafs had long periods of possession in Montreal's zone, and if they can continue to pressure the opposing team like that they will definitly win more then they lose.

Overall, this is a tough loss to swallow. The next game for the Leafs comes this Saturday against the Washington Capitals, who were powered by 2 goals from Ovechkin in a 4-1 win over the Bruins.