The Leafs had a quiet weekend to help the NHL actually draw eyes to the outdoor game on Saturday between the Sens and the Habs. If only they had told Melnyk to shut his dumbass mouth ahead of time so he didn’t kill a lot of Ottawa’s interest ahead of time. We make fun of the Sens a lot, but their fans don’t deserve a Jeff Loria wannabe shitting on them for not having a bigger population to draw fans from.

Yesterday, the news out of Leafs land was Auston Matthews injury watch and potential lineup changes involving William Nylander at center again:

Still a couple of days before the next game, so that practice lineup might not hold up by the time their... 2 pm game on a Tuesday??? What NHL scheduler got into the Christmas drugs early when they drew THAT up?

Back To Excited Hockey Podcast - Episode 11: Optimist/Pessimist | from Arvind and Fulemin, always worth a listen!

Maple Leafs by the Numbers: #2 Thomson, Turnbull, Horner or Pratt? | from Elseldo in his ongoing series.

Martin Marincin has been called up, Nikita Zaitsev to Injured Reserve | from Katya

CWHL Recap: Furies, Thunder both lose final games of 2017 | from Annie

Marlies lose first of back-to-back games against Moose 2-1 | from Species

Around The NHL

Tough break for the plucky Vancouver Canucks, who lost rookie sensastion Brock Boeser to a foot injury and lost big to the Flames.

In a pretty big statement game, the Winnipeg Jets outshot another top Western team in the Blues 46 - 24 and won 4-0.

In darker, more frustrating news, Erik Johnson received a two game suspension for this ugly, dirty, scumbag play against Vlad Namestikov of the Lightning:

Warning: the following contains languagey language where some language is used. If you know what I mean.

Maybe I’m already in an annoyed mood from too many Christmas parties crammed into one weekend, but that is an absolute chickenshit move both by Johnson and by the NHL. Only two fucking games for that? Really? Erik Johnson deserves to miss a whole fucking season for that bullshit. Parros said he was going to crack down on dangerous, non-hockey plays and I don’t see what the fuck hockey has to do with that. But no, he’s just one more spineless windbag the NHL trots out to give little slaps on the wrist to supremely dangerous plays, under the guise of “player safety”, except they don’t actually give a shit about genuinely punishing those plays and getting them out of the game unless someone breaks their fucking neck or dies and might sue the league, justifiably, for not acting sooner.

Go fuck yourself Johnson. Go fuck yourself Parros. And go fuck yourself NHL. The lot of you are cowards of the nth fucking degree.

Have a happy Monday everyone!

True or False: William Nylander should play at C until Matthews comes back

True134
True29