02/08/2010 - Toronto, ON (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Ryane Clowe's goal in the third period lifted the San Jose Sharks to a 3-2 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs at Air Canada Centre.
Dan Boyle and Joe Pavelski each had a goal for the Sharks, who have won four of their last five games. Evgeni Nabokov made 32 saves in the win.
Phil Kessel had a goal and an assist while Tyler Bozak scored for the Maple Leafs, who have dropped eight of their last 10. Jean-Sebastien Giguere, who posted shutouts in his first two games after being acquired by Toronto from Anaheim last week, gave up three goals on 26 shots.
With the score tied in the third period, San Jose took the lead with 6:39 to play. Devin Setoguchi sent a pass from the left side that hit off the skate of a Maple Leaf in front and went right to Clowe, who buried it for a 3-2 lead.
From there the Sharks defense shut down the Maple Leafs, who pulled Giguere with 1 1/2 minutes to play but were unable to net the equalizer.
The Maple Leafs got the only goal of the first period as Kessel got the puck at the right circle, skated down low and sent a pass across the ice to Bozak, who one-timed it home with 9:24 to play in the frame.
San Jose scored a pair of goals in the second period to grab the lead.
The first goal came off a right circle faceoff win as Joe Thornton won the draw and the puck came back to Boyle, who fired a shot on net that bounced past Giguere at the 3:17 mark.
Just 2:24 later, the Sharks made it a 2-1 game when Pavelski fired a wrister on net using the defender as a screen to sneak the puck past Giguere.
Toronto, though, tied the game in the final minute of the second with a power- play marker as Dion Phaneuf's wrister from the right point was kicked out to the left side where Kessel buried it for his 21st goal of the year.
Game Notes
Tomas Kaberle's assist on Kessel's goal was the 400th helper of his career...Toronto plays its final game before the Olympic break at St. Louis on Friday...San Jose continues its six-game road trip in Columbus on Wednesday...San Jose has won four straight against Toronto and has not lost a game to the Maple Leafs since January 29, 2002.
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Beanpot
Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).
Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.
Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).
Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.
Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.
The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.
What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.
Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.
But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.
In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.
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