TORONTO -- The Toronto Maple Leafs have made themselves
perfectly comfortable at Ottawa's home rink.
Not only have the Leafs won five of their last six playoff games
there and all three games during the past regular season, thousands
of Leafs fans dressed in blue and white cheer them on as well.
Their first-round playoff series, tied at 1-1, shifts from
Toronto to Ottawa with Game 3 Monday night.
"Let's hope the trend continues," defenseman Bryan McCabe said
Sunday. "It's a good atmosphere with a lot of Leafs fans but it's
going to be a tough battle.
"It's also going to be a lot of fun and, hopefully, we'll take
a 2-1 lead."
The Leafs believe that Ed Belfour's goaltending gives them an
edge over the Senators. That certainly was the case in their 2-0
win Saturday night. Ottawa had a 31-26 shots advantage but couldn't
score on Belfour.
But afterward, Toronto coach Pat Quinn accused Vaclav Varada of
taking a cheap shot on Mats Sundin's knees and Tie Domi called
Varada a dirty player.
Varada was asked Sunday whether he thinks Domi is a dirty
player.
"I don't know, I'm not in the shower with him," Varada said.
"I don't know if he uses any soap or not."
Quinn started criticizing the Senators, but cut himself short.
"They've, in my opinion, buffaloed a lot of people," he said.
"They want the image that it's the other teams that are bad guys
all the time, yet, they're as bad guys as there are around."
There was a fight after time expired Saturday, and Ottawa's Greg
de Vries hit Tom Fitzgerald with a fist to the head. Fighting after
a game ends has been frowned upon by the league.
Darcy Tucker's return provided a spark for the Leafs, and Ken
Klee's return to the lineup helped settle down Tomas Kaberle. But
Quinn remains dissatisfied with his team's play in its own zone.
"We have to stop the turnovers," he said. "I just reviewed
the tape and on a lot of their chances we had the puck one, two,
three times and weren't safe with it.
"Some of our guys are real chasers. You can't have a guy just
running after the puck because it screws everybody else up. We've
got to be stronger in our defensive zone coverage and be less in a
hurry to get where the puck was."
The only thing the Senators need to change is their power play.
"We're going to make some adjustments," captain Daniel
Alfredsson said. "Special teams are always very important, but I
think that if you want to win a whole series you have to score more
goals five-on-five."