TORONTO - Leave it up to an 18-year-old prairie boy to revive the Battle of Ontario.The last time the Toronto Maple Leafs faced the Ottawa Senators in the playoffs was four years ago. Since then, rosters have changed and it seemed that the rivalry was finally starting to fade away.
Then Luke Schenn came along and wrote a new chapter in the book of hate.
Less than a minute into Saturday night's game, the rookie defenceman set the tone in Toronto's 3-2 win over Ottawa by dropping his gloves with Senators enforcer Chris Neil.
"I had to get the first fight over sooner or later," Schenn said of his first NHL bout. "I don't go looking for it all the time, but once in a while it just happens."
On Saturday, the fight happened because an Ottawa player had taken liberties with Schenn's teammate.
Neil, a fourth-line agitator who used to go toe-to-toe with Toronto's Tie Domi and Wade Belak, had caught Matt Stajan with what appeared to be a knee-on-knee hit. Without thinking, Schenn rushed to his teammate's aid by taking on the much-older and stronger opponent.
"I don't know if he kneed Stajan or not, but he took a little run at him. So I decided to jump in there," said Schenn, who was named the game's first star. "I realized that (Neil's) not afraid to fight once in a while."
Indeed, the six-foot-two, 216-pound Schenn took more punches than he gave against Neil.
After the game, the youngster's nose was still bleeding. But while Schenn may have lost his first NHL fight, his teammates and fans made him feel like a victor.
Stajan skated over and patted the youngster on the head. The Toronto crowd roared with applause. And his team responded with a hard-fought win.
"I think Luke would respond to anything that he feels is a cheap shot and gets right in there," said Leafs head coach Ron Wilson. "It was a mob scene when he got out of the penalty box . . . it was fun to see. I think the fans really appreciated him jumping in there."
The fight seemed to give life to the Leafs, who took a 1-0 lead on a power-play goal by Dominic Moore.
It wasn't pretty, but it was the type of goal that Wilson has been trying to get his players to score since the start of this season.
Jason Blake drove the puck hard to the net and Mike Van Ryn and Moore followed up by whacking in the rebound at 14:14 into the first period. It was only the Leafs' sixth power-play goal this season.
"That's going to have to be our game. Forecheck strong and don't be fancy," said Moore, who has two goals this season. "Speed is our strength. We're going to have to play aggressively and work hard to get our chances. The ones that go in are because of hard work."
Toronto, which outshot Ottawa 21-9 in the first period and 12-4 in the second, outworked its opponent. And it paid off.
Mikhail Grabovski scored his first goal of the season at 2:15 in the middle frame to put Toronto up 2-0. Less than two minutes later, Ottawa's Shean Donovan redirected an Alexandre Picard point shot to pull within one.
Alexei Ponikarovsky put the Leafs up 3-1 at 13:37 in the third, but the Senators, who had lost 4-3 to the Anaheim Ducks the night before, managed to come back again.
In the final minute of the game, Ottawa forward Dean McAmmond scored a short-handed goal at 19:11 to make it a one-goal game. But with the net empty, the Senators could not get the tying goal.
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