On This Day March 22nd.

March 22: On this day in 1940, Leaf great Dave Keon was born in Noranda, Quebec. Keon played his first game as a Leaf on opening night in Montreal in 1960 and went on to play in every game of the 1960-61 schedule and win the Calder trophy. He won the Lady Byng trophy in 1962 and repeated in 1963. In his final season as a Leaf in 1974-75, Keon became the 3rd Leaf in team history to play in 1,000 games in a Leaf uniform. As a Leaf, Keon had 365 goals and 493 assists in 1,062 games. Despite his great numbers, Keon is considered one of the premier NHL checking centers in the history of the game. To this day, he shares the Leafs' season record of 8 shorthanded goals in one season. As of 2005-06, Keon is the only Leaf to have been awarded the Conn Smythe trophy as MVP in the playoffs.

Turk Broda

March 22: On this day in 1949, the Leafs opened the 1949 playoff season with a 3-0 shutout over the Boston Bruins in Game 1 of the Semi-finals. Toronto was gunning to become the first team in NHL history to "three-peat" and capture a third straight Stanley Cup. Despite a rather dismal regular season record of 22-25-13, the Leafs had money-goalie Turk Broda between the pipes and cruised to their third consecutive Cup, defeating Boston in 5 games and then sweeping the Red Wings in four straight.

March 22: On this day in 1959, the Leafs completed a five game season-ending winning streak to edge the New York Rangers for the fourth and final playoff spot by one point. The Leafs had trailed the Rangers by 9 points earlier in the month and needed help from the collapsing New Yorkers who lost 6 of their last 7 games. In the final game of the season, the Leafs defeated the Red Wings 6-4 in Detroit with Dick Duff getting the game winner. It was a great playoff surge for the Leafs and Punch Imlach in his first season as coach and General Manager. In the playoffs, the Leafs defeated the Bruins in 7 games in the semi-finals, before bowing out to the Montreal Canadiens in a 5-game final.