These Leafs appear to be built of sterner stuff
It was not deja-blew all over again.
And that is the most significant factor in Toronto's 3-2 season opener victory over the Montreal Canadiens.
Wind the clock back one year and remember, cringe, over the psychic trough into which this club tumbled when out-playing their dynastic rivals, surrendering a slim lead and losing in overtime.
Rather than accentuating the positive of the encounter, that Leaf team was weirdly strung out by it, a funk that sent them into an early-season tailspin from which they never recovered.
"The opener last year was a dynamic game and yet we got no result from it,'' coach Ron Wilson had recalled earlier in the day. "We should have been able to build on that but it undid us.''
Those Leafs were disastrously fragile. These Leafs, whatever else their shortcomings - and they will no doubt unfold over the months to come - appear to be made of somewhat stronger stuff.
There was no sense of panic when Jeff Halpern cut Toronto's 3-1 margin early in the third frame, less than a minute after Clarke MacArthur had provided it
Something resembling poise settled over the home side, at least until the waning seconds when Jean-Sebastien Giguere provided the goalmouth mettle that was absent 12 months ago, making bang-bang stops on Brian Gionta to preserve the two points.
"This is probably one that, last year, we'd get tied on in the last couple of minutes,'' Wilson acknowledged, contrasting this outcome with the 4-3 loss of Oct. 1, 2009 and all the troubles that ensued. "It just popped our balloon.''
That late-game collapse would be echoed again and again over the course of a benighted season, as if the team was predestined to crumble with the slightest pressure applied.
Wilson, for one, still claims it was not a matter of slim confidence evaporating in tense situations. He points instead to a basic fact of roster composition.
"I wouldn't say panic. We've just got better personnel (now), better people. I could put out (Tim) Brent's line and know that nothing bad was going to happen.''
Translation: Giguere in goal rather than the unlamented Vesa Toskala and a checking third line that doesn't seem inclined to flinch under the gun.
It would be foolhardy to extrapolate too much from one game, but don't discount the significance of it, either. A home-ice W to start has eased nerves, anxiety that was obvious on the faces of several players as they were introduced during opening ceremonies, particularly those making their debut as Air Canada Centre habitu?s.
A pretty game it was not. But this isn't a squad designed to win fetchingly. It lacks gobsmacking talent; has only a couple of marquee-ish players.
Cumulatively, however, a team personality is emerging off the evidence of exhibition games and Thursday night's performance. This assembly of Leafs has retained only a half-dozen bodies from the lineup mustered for last year's opener. The dynamics have altered, presumably for the better, not that it could get much worse than the nadir reached this past spring, fifth year in a row with no May days of hockey in Toronto.
Without overstating the case, there were nuggets of optimism-inducing elements displayed against the Canadiens: Better team speed, most especially on the first line, with Phil Kessel giving every indication of continuing his go-to-guy reliability; a defence that made do during the eight minutes or so that captain Dion Phaneuf disappeared from the scene for stitches; Giguere's assuredness in the net; Luke Schenn rebounding from his sophomore willies.
Heck, Mikhail Grabovski was even back-checking.
Surely that means anything is possible.
