Grabovski suspended three games

TORONTO - Toronto Maple Leafs forward Mikael Grabovski was suspended by the National Hockey League on Friday for three games for abuse of an official.

Grabovski made contact with linesman Scott Cherrey in the third period of Thursday night's game against the Montreal Canadiens, while Cherrey attempted to restrain the Leaf from going after Canadiens forward Sergei Kostitsyn.

A three-game suspension is the NHL's automatic penalty for inappropriate contact between a player and an official. According to TSN.ca, the Leafs won't appeal the league's decision.

Grabovski, who played for the Canadiens last season, has been at odds with his former teammates all season. But, tensions flared between them on Nov. 8 when Grabovski got away with a butt-end on Canadiens goalie Carey Price.

The younger Kostitsyn brother was tossed from that game for going after the Leafs' centre.

After Thursday's game, Kostitsyn implied that tension will remain between the Habs and their nemesis when they meet again on Feb. 7 in Montreal.

"He talks too much in the Russian papers about me and my brother," he said.

Canadiens crush Maple Leafs

The Canadiens crushed their one-time archrivals, the Toronto Maple Leafs, 6-2 at the Bell Centre Thursday night in a game that featured 140 penalty minutes, including eight 10-minute misconduct penalties and four fighting majors.

"It was a classic Original Six matchup," said Maxim Lapierre, who's too young to remember when these teams did produce classic games.

This one was a one-sided mismatch after Sergei Kostitsyn scored a power-play goal at 2:35 of the first period and Lapierre stepped out of the penalty box and made it 2-0 at 4:59.

"We wanted to get a quick start and we did," Lapierre said. "We played last night, but we didn't think about being tired. We knew this was a big game."

There were lots of things to like about this game - if you were a Canadiens fan.

There was another example of the team's depth. With six regulars out of the lineup, the Canadiens are playing some of their best hockey of the season. Six different players scored and they included third-liners Lapierre and Guillaume Latendresse as well as rookie Max Pacioretty, who has two goals and assist in the four games since he was called up from Hamilton.

There's the power play that is trying to prove it's better than its ranking of 27th in the NHL.

After going 2-for-4 in Wednesday's 6-3 win over the Rangers in New York, the Habs were 2-for-8 against the Leafs. Sergei Kostitsyn scored with the extra man in the first period and older brother, Andrei, scored in the second. Andrei also had two assists.

Veteran Alex Kovalev scored for the second time in as many nights and added an assist to share the team scoring lead with Robert Lang.

They each have 31 points.

Patrice Brisebois collected assists on each of the first three Montreal goals and moved into fifth place on the all-time Montreal defence scoring list with 364 points, one more than J.C. Tremblay. And Jaroslav Halak turned in another solid performance, stopping 32 shots to run his record to 8-6-1.

Halak was struggling a week ago, but goaltending coach Rollie Melanson said the netminder has tweaked a few things in his technique and that has made the difference.

That's good news, because the Canadiens need Halak as Carey Price has been slow recovering from an ankle injury. He tried skating Wednesday with little success and Melanson said there was no sense rushing him.

Tomas Kaberle and Matt Stajan scored for the Leafs.

It wasn't a sweet homecoming for Mikhail Grabovski, who was traded to the Leafs in the offseason. He was booed by the fans and was involved in altercations with Latendresse and fellow Belarusian, Sergei Kostitsyn.

He received two misconducts.

"He was trying to get something going, because they were down," Latendresse said. "But I didn't want to fight him, because there's a difference in our size."

The Kostitsyns and Grabovski were once friends, but Sergei said Grabovski has been bad-mouthing the brothers in the Russian press.

"He talks too much," Sergei said.

"Any time (Sergei) wants to fight, we can go out on the street," Grabovski snapped.

The recent surge in scoring is welcome, because the Canadiens haven't had much success scoring against the Capitals.

Kaberle will waive no-trade clause if asked by Leafs

MONTREAL - A year after he refused to be dealt at the trade deadline, Tomas Kaberle said that he would agree to move on if management asked him.

The Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman, who has a no-trade clause in his contract, added that he hoped to stay with the team that drafted him 13 years ago. But if he is not in the long-term plans, he said would accept a change of scenery.

"Obviously, I want to stay here and be a Maple Leaf," Kaberle said prior to Thursday night's game against the Montreal Canadiens. "But if (Leafs general manager) Brian Burke comes to me and he doesn't want me on the team any more, than obviously it would be a different story.

"If someone doesn't want you on the team, then you don't want to stay obviously. I love to play for the Maple Leafs. I'll always want to."

Kaberle, who was selected 204th overall in 1996, has blossomed into one of the Leafs' top players. The puck-moving rearguard, who has 25 points this season, was named Thursday to his fourth all-star game.

But with the team in a rebuilding stage, the 31-year-old might be seen as a valuable asset on the trade market.

Last season, it was reported Kaberle nixed a deal that would have sent him to the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for Jeff Carter, as well as a first-round draft choice. Now that Carter is tied for first in the league with 27 goals, the Flyers are probably thankful for that.

Kaberle is not the only Toronto player who might finish the season in another jersey. In the last few weeks, Nik Antropov, Dominic Moore, Vesa Toskala and Pavel Kubina, who has a no-movement clause, have all been mentioned in trade rumours.

Burke, who acquired veteran Brad May on Wednesday, has not indicated whether he would move Kaberle or any other player, but it's no secret that Toronto, which currently does not have selections in the second or fourth rounds in the June draft, needs to stockpile draft picks.

Still, Kaberle would prefer to continue growing with the team.

"I think we have lots of young kids here, and they've been showing a lot in the first half of the season," he said. "They have a lot of good seasons ahead of them. Obviously, it's not something that's going to happen overnight. And I hope I'm part of the rebuilding."

The Leafs headed into Thursday night's game in 11th place in the Eastern Conference. Though fans might be hoping for Toronto to drop further in the standings - and conversely higher in the draft - the team was still only seven points out of a playoff spot as it entered the midway point of the season.

"We just want to make the playoffs," Kaberle said. "That's the key. We don't want to be in the bottom eight spots. We have a long way to go, for sure. I think we're seven points behind right now and we have to get on a roll to be on a playoff spot."

Leafs acquire May in deal with Ducks

TORONTO - Brian Burke's extreme makeover of the Toronto Maple Leafs began with the general manager adding what is to him a familiar face.

In Burke's first trade since his late November introduction as the Leafs GM when he said his new team required "proper levels of pugnacity, testosterone, truculence and belligerence," the 53-year-old swung a deal with his former team in Anaheim to acquire veteran winger Brad May for a sixth-round draft pick.

"Brad will provide character, toughness, and he is a proven winner," Burke said in a statement. "We look forward to the veteran leadership that he will give our team."

The 37-year-old May, who has 126 goals, 245 points and 2,121 penalty minutes in 963 career games, played for Burke in Vancouver and helped Burke's Ducks win the Stanley Cup in 2007.

"Obviously Brian Burke knows him really from the leadership that he provided that team," head coach Ron Wilson said. "It's just another guy who can bring a little bit more sandpaper to our lineup."

Wilson said May, who was celebrating his son's 13th birthday in California on Wednesday, was expected to take a red-eye to Montreal and be in Toronto's lineup Thursday against the Canadiens.

The coach made it clear he hoped May might stiffen a team that Wilson feels has been too meek, particularly in a 4-2 loss to Florida on Tuesday night.

"In a game like we were going through (Tuesday) night, I'd like somebody to stand up and express a little anger whether it be with his own play or his teammates' play," said Wilson. "I'm not sure, to be honest with you, if Brad May is that kind of a guy. But we do need some more vocality - or whatever the word would be - in our locker-room. It can't be as quiet as it is sometimes."

May's arrival in Toronto makes him a teammate of Dominic Moore, whose brother Steve had his career ended by a hit from Todd Bertuzzi, a former May teammate in Vancouver.

Bertuzzi's hit on Steve Moore came after May allegedly put a bounty on the former Colorado forward for his hit on former Canucks captain Markus Naslund.

"That's the past, simple as that," said Wilson. "He's a good guy and everybody who's played with him loves playing with Brad. That's more important than anything."

To make room for May on the roster, Toronto sent struggling rookie forward Nikolai Kulemin to the Toronto Marlies of the American Hockey League.

"He hasn't been playing very well," said Wilson of the 22-year-old Kulemin, who had 14 points in 40 games this season, but just three in his last 15 games. "Hopefully he'll earn his minutes down there and he'll improve his play and we can call him back."

McCabe booed lustily as Panthers top Leafs - Panthers 4, Leafs 2

TORONTO - Motivational carrots were everywhere Tuesday night.

There was a pre-game ceremony honouring Canada's recent gold medal victory at the world junior championship. There was the home crowd booing the highly anticipated return of a former defenceman. And, most importantly, there was an important two points to be gained in the standings.

But, for whatever reason, the Toronto Maple Leafs came out flat in what was an uninspiring 4-2 loss to the Florida Panthers.

"There's no reason," said Leafs forward Nik Antropov. "We had the crowd there for us. It was a good opportunity to catch them. We can't play at home like that."

Despite a pre-game warning from their head coach, the Leafs sleepwalked through the first period. Florida scored the opening two goals as Toronto trailed 2-0 for the 16th time this season. The team is now 5-9-2 when down two goals to none.

It was not until the third period, when the Panthers were up 3-0, that the Leafs began to mount a comeback. By then, it was too late.

"We didn't show up for most of the game," said Leafs head coach Ron Wilson. "I was not very happy with the effort . . . we've got to find a way to find the passion and the energy."

While Leafs rookie Luke Schenn came back after missing 12 games with torn ligaments in his knee, the Toronto crowd welcomed back longtime Leaf Bryan McCabe. Unlike Schenn, who was cheered during the pre-game introductions, McCabe received a not-so-warm homecoming.

Not that it was totally unexpected.

Once a popular Leaf who had scored 19 goals and 68 points in 2005-06, McCabe had served as the whipping boy for the team's failures in his final two seasons in Toronto. Despite changing jerseys, fans still treated him with scorn.

McCabe was booed when he first stepped on the ice. He was booed whenever he touched the puck. And he was booed when his name was announced for assisting on a Florida goal.

"It was fine. I got it much worse when I played here," joked McCabe. "All in all, it was a good trip."

It was not until the centre ice video screen thanked McCabe by showing some of his on-ice accomplishments that the crowd managed a spattering of applause. Those may have been the only cheers heard in a first period that saw the Panthers take a 2-0 lead after outshooting the Leafs 16-8.

Toronto goaltender Vesa Toskala, who made 20 saves, was tested early and often.

The Panthers had outshot Toronto 10-0 when they had a goal disallowed because a video review showed that the net had become dislodged on the play.

Florida, of course, kept attacking. And at 10:16, Stephen Weiss ripped a wrist shot on the power play over Toskala's glove hand. Florida went up 2-0 about seven minutes later on a wrist shot from Ville Peltonen.

"Coach was saying, 'Make sure you're mentally ready,' " said Toskala. "And we weren't. We just didn't have our legs. They came with speed and had a good cycle game in our own end. And we were chasing them around."

In an attempt to spark his listless team, Wilson juggled all four of Toronto's forward lines in the second period. But the Leafs, who went down 3-0 on a goal by Michael Frolik, failed to wake up.

It was not until the final period when the Leafs finally found the back of the net.

Five minutes after Toronto's Alexei Ponikarovsky scored on a power play, Florida's Gregory Campbell answered back. The Leafs scored again on a short-handed breakaway goal by Jason Blake.

Leafs win feisty battle with Senators - Leafs 3, Ottawa 1

TORONTO - It has been five years since the Toronto Maple Leafs and Ottawa Senators last met in the post-season.

Based on where the two teams are in the standings, a rematch is not likely to happen anytime soon. But the provincial rivals, who probably have a better chance at the draft lottery than the playoffs, still found plenty to fight about on Saturday.

In what was a heated game that featured 60 hits and 48 penalty minutes, the Leafs earned bragging rights by defeating the Senators 3-1 at Air Canada Centre. Toronto now leads the season series 2-0-1.

"Both teams are fighting pretty hard to compete for playoff spots," said Leafs forward Dominic Moore, who scored his eighth goal of the season. "They came out with a good competitive edge. I thought it was good to match it."

As usual, Toronto gave up the first goal in the opening 20 minutes, but the Leafs tied the game in the second period and scored twice in the final frame.

The win gives the Leafs 38 points in 40 games. The team, which is still in 11th place in the East, is now five points out of a playoff spot. Though the Senators are right behind in the standings, they trail Toronto by seven points.

"I think we saw it tonight that Ottawa suddenly realized that they better start acting desperate if they want any shot at making the playoffs at all," said Leafs head coach Ron Wilson. "I don't know what we are (in the standings) . . . but they've got a heck of a mountain to climb. I think they showed some intensity tonight. And that was good for us. We responded."

In a pre-game ceremony, the Leafs honoured the Canadian Forces. It seemed appropriate. As soon as the puck dropped, Toronto and Ottawa waged their own war.

A mere 17 seconds into the game, Jason Spezza speared Moore in the midsection. Several open-ice hits and post-whistle scrums followed. And at one point in the second period, a combined six players were sitting in the penalty box with roughing penalties.

"The rivalry brews," said Moore, who was surprised that Spezza was only penalized for a minor slashing penalty. "It was a spear. But again, you can't complain . . . to the refs."

Vesa Toskala was nearly perfect after having the last two games off. The 31-year-old goaltender had allowed four goals in each of his last two starts, but on Saturday he seemed to be moving around in his crease with ease as he stopped 30 shots for his 14th win of the season.

"He bounced right back," said Wilson. "He's mentally fresh and physically probably felt as best as he has in a month."

Daniel Alfredsson put the Senators up 1-0 lead on a power-play goal at 7:05 in the first period. Ottawa might have had padded its lead, but the team had difficulty burying its chances.

On a two-on-one opportunity in the opening frame, Spezza slid a pass to Chris Phillips, who had a wide-open net but shot wide. Another example of why the Senators headed into the game having scored only 83 goals - the fewest in the league.

Phillips' night managed to get even worse in the second period.

The snake-bitten defenceman, who has a team-worst minus-19 rating, somehow managed to miss the puck on a defensive clearing attempt. And as luck would have it, Moore grabbed the loose puck and tied the game on the power play.

The Leafs took a 2-1 lead on an even-strength goal by Alexei Ponikarovsky at 10:03 in the third period.

Pavel Kubina had just exited the penalty box after serving a holding infraction when he raced behind the Ottawa defence for a loose puck. The Toronto defenceman then slid a pass in front of the net to Ponikarovsky, who beat goaltender Martin Gerber with a wrist shot. It was his 12th of the season

Blake added an insurance goal with 4:09 remaining in the third.

"I saw (Kubina) coming out of the box and thought, 'OK, we have a two-man advantage,' " said Ponikarovsky. "I yelled that I was open . . . and we got a goal."

Burke sold on Tavares as top pick

OTTAWA-As far as Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke is concerned, there is no longer any debate over who ought to be the No.1 pick in this summer's NHL draft. It's John Tavares.

"He's proved it at this tournament as far as I'm concerned," said Burke. "He's scoring different goals, power goals, finesse goals, running the power play. He's a special player.

"No debate anymore. Not for me."

The other player in the debate is Swedish blueliner Victor Hedman.

But while Tavares has been Canada's best player at the world junior hockey championship, many believe Hedman is not even Sweden's best defenceman.

That would be Erik Karlsson, an Ottawa Senators draft pick, who has two goals and four assists to lead the Swedish attack. Hedman has two assists.

That may be why Sweden coach Par Marst called out Hedman, saying he needs more from his 6-foot-6 defender, who has drawn comparisons to Chris Pronger, Nicklas Lidstrom and Mattias Ohlund.

"He can play better," said Marst. "He can do better. He should control the puck better, set the other guys up with the good passes, that's the main thing Victor has to do."

Hedman, who has missed most of the season in the Swedish Elite League with a shoulder injury, agrees with his coach.

"I can be better," said Hedman. "I can be more creative with offence. I think I play a good defensive game. It's not every game you can play at your top level."

The Swedes take on Slovakia today in the semifinals.

Hedman's slower-than-expected start at this tournament aside, Marst says the defenceman is the complete package, the kind of player a general manager can build a franchise around.

"Some guys are better than him in certain things, but as a whole package - he's strong, he's a good skater, a good shot - he is at that franchise-player level," said Marst.

Burke said it would be a mistake to take Hedman just because you need help on the blue line.

"Otherwise you pass on a guy who becomes a star," he said.