TORONTO - Following a somewhat predictable letdown in Carolina on Thursday night – a 4-1 loss that snapped a season high six-game winning streak - the Leafs began what would be a relatively relaxed hour-long practice on Friday with a somewhat unpredictable activity. Right-handed shooting players held their sticks as lefties and left-handers held their sticks as righties. Everybody took the ice along with a couple of pucks and fun was had for five minutes or so. For head coach Randy Carlyle, there’s a method to this madness. “There’s a heavy workload coming so it can’t be all doom and gloom,” said Carlyle, whose team will play three games in four night beginning on Saturday against the Philadelphia Flyers before the Christmas break. “When you come to work, we believe that you have to come in a positive frame of mind. We met before [practice] and went over some video; we explained what we were seeing and how it has to change going forward. We find that if you can lighten up the start of practice a little bit, it usually is more productive and you get a more productive group coming [Saturday], which we feel is the most important day.” Players begrudgingly recalled some aspects of a disappointing loss to the Hurricanes when asked, but it was clear that the team’s focus was solely pointed at rebounding on Saturday night, their final home game before embarking on a seven game road trip that won’t see them back at Air Canada Centre until January 7 against the Washington Capitals. “It’s a long season and you’re not going to have your “A” game for all 82, unfortunately,” explained James van Riemsdyk. “That’s what you strive for, but realistically, that’s not what happens.You take it for what it’s worth and move on to get ready for the next one.” The challenge now for the Leafs is to ensure a poor result does not shake the confidence developed over a stretch that saw them earn 21 of a possible 24 points prior to the loss. Where at times earlier in the season, the Leafs would appear fragile in the face of adversity, letting poor starts in games against Pittsburgh, Detroit and Boston snowball into one-sided defeats or allowing the quality of their play to erode from game to game to game in losses to Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Nashville in mid-November, Dion Phaneuf insisted the team has moved beyond those dark days. “[The media] want to look back on the past and the negatives of our year and I respect that. Thats what you have to do. You have to ask those questions,” Phaneuf acknowledged. “But for us as a team, we have to focus on [Saturday]. We can sit here and say we got beat in Carolina and hang our heads and mope and pout, but that doesnt do any good. We have to come back, we have to be focused, we have to be ready to play Philadelphia. Weve got a big weekend ahead of us here. We have to respond the right way and I believe well do that.” Perhaps the most reassuring message the Leafs have delivered this season is an acknowledgement of deficient areas in their play when ugly habits have cropped up. Throughout the 10-1-1 run that ended with Thursday’s loss, there were wins against the Tampa Bay Lightning and a pair against the Detroit Red Wings that perfectly illustrated the desired style the coaching staff is consistently pleading for. However, recently the Leafs have returned to a heavier reliance on spectacular goaltending and high octane offence in order to see success. “We can’t start the way that we started [against Carolina] or the game previous [against Anaheim],” said Phaneuf. “We’re giving up too many shots in the first period, we’re receiving the game too much. That’s on us as players to be more prepared to start games.” Saturday’s match up will be the first of the season for the Leafs against the struggling Flyers, winners of just three of their last 10 games. While Philly sits eight points out of a playoff spot, the Leafs learned the hard way on Thursday that no game is a given anymore. “We know what they’re capable of over there and it doesn’t matter who you’re playing, any team can beat any team if you’re not ready to go,” said van Riemsdyk. PRACTICE NOTES Komarov Skates Leo Komarov skated with strength and conditioning coach Anthony Belza prior to practice on Friday for about 20 minutes. It marked just the second time Komarov had skated since taking a hit to the head from Alexander Ovechkin on November 29. But despite missing nine games thus far, his return is still uncertain. “Its the first step back into the process that a player returning needs to be testing himself both in the gym and on the ice, said Carlyle. Other than that, hes in testing mode.” Carlyle Assesses Jake Gardiner Jake Gardiner has had an up and down season to this point, but this past week has arguably been his toughest stretch. A pair of mistakes on Sunday against the LA Kings directly led to two goals against. On Thursday against Carolina, Gardiner was unable to tie up Chris Terry at the top of the crease despite being in good position. Terry tapped in a pass from Eric Staal to get the Hurricanes on the board first. Asked about Gardiner’s play of late, head coach Randy Carlyle was succinct in his assessment, “I think Jakes been very erratic, simple as that.” Already a healthy scratch twice this season in consecutive games (wins against the New York Rangers and Colorado Avalanche in October) and now with seven defencemen healthy once again, could Gardiner be sat in favour of Korbinian Holzer with back-to-back games this weekend against the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday and the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday? Polak Returns Roman Polak played 18:58 in his return to the line-up on Thursday against the Carolina Hurricanes after missing the past 10 games with a knee injury. He admitted on Friday that the long stretch of time off left him feeling somewhat behind in terms of game speed. “Of course, I didn’t have any practice with the boys; I was skating a lot on my own,” Polak explained after practice. “Ten games out, you can feel it; it was like three-and-a-half weeks or so. You feel a little slow out there, my reads are maybe not as accurate as you did before. You need a couple games to get back into shape and the groove that you were in before.” But other than being a little sore and tired on Friday, Polak declared himself all good. New Look Lines Randy Carlyle shuffled his forward lines against the Hurricanes in an effort to spark some offense after a lacklustre first period. Those same lines remained intact at practice on Friday. “I thought we were getting we were getting a little bit more from that group and who knows, we could change it back tomorrow,” said Carlyle. “We don’t know if we’re going to go with that specifically but we liked what we saw last night.” NEW LINES Left Wing Centre Right Wing Joffrey Lupul Tyler Bozak Phil Kessel James van Riemsdyk Nazem Kadri Mike Santorelli Daniel Winnik Peter Holland David Clarkson Richard Panik Trevor Smith David Both OLD LINES Left Wing Centre Right Wing James van Riemsdyk Tyler Bozak Phil Kessel Daniel Winnik Nazem Kadri Mike Santorelli Joffrey Lupul Peter Holland David Clarkson Richard Panik Trevor Smith David Booth Marshall Faulk Jersey . Last July, F1 teams held in-season testing sessions at Silverstone to assess new tires provided by Pirelli after several blowouts on the same circuit at the British Grand Prix in June prompted a furious response from drivers and even a boycott threat the following week. Andrew Luck Jersey . Austin Watson, Scott Ford, Filip Forsberg and Mark Van Guilder had the other goals for the Admirals (30-21-12). Scott Darling made 30 saves for his 10th win of the season. http://www.officialindianapoliscoltspro....g-colts-jersey/. James scored 25 points against his former team, leading the energized Heat to a 114-107 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Saturday night. Dwyane Wade added 24 points and Chris Bosh had 22 for the Heat, idle since a 90-84 loss Tuesday at Indiana. Reggie Wayne Jersey . The Jets have now won three straight at home and four of the last five at the MTS Centre. After a scoreless first period, Brad Marchand scored his first goal in eight games eight seconds into the second. Darius Leonard Jersey . Tensions rose in the first period when Penguins defenceman Brooks Orpik hit Bruins forward Loui Eriksson with what appeared to be a clean hit.Got a question on rule clarification, comments on rule enforcements or some memorable NHL stories? Kerry wants to answer your emails at cmonref@tsn.ca. Hey Ref, I am a Habs fan, but no one likes to see headshots or injuries. I dont think that Douglas Murray intended to concuss Mike Kostka, and I really hate the trend of punishment based on severity of injury instead of severity of the infraction. Murray deserves a suspension, but given inconsistency of supplementary discipline I have no idea what is appropriate. I see worse things get away with nothing and things that arent as bad might get 3 games. It just seems random. What Murray did was a lazy, stupid panic reaction to a player he knew he could not keep up with or slow down legally, and could reasonably have been foreseen as injurious but I dont think he intended that. He clearly meant to hit him, he clearly stuck out his elbow, but I dont think he intended to make it the sole or even primary point of contact. He is just big and slow enough that it was all he made contact with. I would probably give him 3-4 games but given inconsistency have no idea what to expect. Whatta we have to do to get consistency, and what does this deserve? PR Kerry, I read your post on a regular basis. My team is not on anyones radar, playoff-wise, so bias not an issue here. On Tuesday you commented on the Orpik hit - I totally agree on your view. I just happened to be channel surfing last night and saw the Douglas Murray hit which may not have been equal to but not unlike the Orpik hit except Murrays skates did not leave the ice but intensions were much the same with perhaps a bit more elbow and the refs threw the book at Murray -- match penalty. In your opinion, should the refs be more on the severe side in these cases like the Murray hit? Also, there seems to be real disconnect when these calls are made in different games with different teams. Just an opinion, but I think it would be better if the referees were more severe - more MATCH penalties in these situations. Intent to injure, which many of these hits are, should equal a match penalty. Murrays hit equals automatic suspension, Orpik equals 0 jb CLICK HERE to watch the play in question. PR and JB: I agree that Douglas Murray neither attempted nor intended to injure Mike Kostka on this play. At 63 and 240 lbs, Douglas Murray is a huge presence on the blue line but he is not regarded as a dirty player. Murray is a "straight ahead" type of player with somewhat limited lateral mobility. Given his size, whenever Murray contains or catches an opponent inside his personal space he can administer a punishing body check. On the play in question, it was this limited lateral mobility that caused Douglas Murray to make himself even bigger with a reflex elbow once Mike Kostka dished the puck offf in close quarters and was about to beat the Habs defenceman to the inside.dddddddddddd A match penalty for attempting to or deliberately injuring an opponent is more typically imposed for a retaliatory attack on an opponent and/or when there is a larger gap in space and time that would indicate some premeditation. For example, if Douglas Murray had taken a run at Mike Kosta with his elbow in an extended prone position targeted at the head of his opponent, a match penalty should clearly result. While I am in no way condoning the poor and dangerous decision that Murray made to extend his elbow and contact the head of Kostka, it appeared to be a desperation, reflex move by Murray intended to stop his opponent and not in an attempt to deliberately injure Kostka. Under the current standard and interpretation, a 5 minute major and game misconduct would be the more expected penalty assessment on a play of this nature. The resulting time penalty (5 minutes) and expulsion from the game Murray incurred would have been the same with either assessment. To your point, JB, if there was any doubt in the refs mind whether to assess a major plus game misconduct or a match penalty he and the game would be better served by imposing the more severe penalty. The primary difference is that as a result of being assessed a match penalty, Douglas Murray was automatically suspended from further competition until the Commissioner (Players Safety Committee) has ruled on the issue as stipulated in Rule 21.2. If a major and game misconduct (or no penalty at all) had been assessed, the Players Safety Committee would, at their discretion, been able to review the hit and impose a suspension to Murray under Rule 28 - supplementary discipline if they deemed it worthy. Douglas Murray needs to be suspended for his decision and actions on this play. I wouldnt expect it to be more than three games but your guess is as good as mine. There is a big difference between Brooks Orpiks check that made contact through the body and the head of Jonathan Toews and Murrays elbow hit to the head of Mike Kostka. Orpiks hit is deemed to be entirely "legal" while Douglas Murray clearly violated Rule 45 - elbowing and/or Rule 48 - illegal check to the head. Orpik left his feet to increase velocity and impact through the hit on his opponents body and head while Murray kept his skates planted firmly on the ice when he extended an elbow that struck the head of Kostka and became the main point of contact. Brooks Orpik intended to inflict added punishment with the hit on Toews, who had placed himself in a vulnerable position, while Douglas Murrays illegal reflex elbow was intended to stop Mike Kosta from getting past him. As Ive outlined, there is a big difference in the two hits where contact to the head of an opponent resulted in varying degrees. 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