There are 13 NHL games tonight, including the Leafs at home to Ottawa at 7pm on HNIC. Christmas is definitely over.

What isn't over is the roster freeze, and at time of writing I still don't know for sure who the Leafs moved off the roster to make room for Chris Tanev. Whatever happened, the paperwork hasn't filtered out to sites that track this yet.

At the WJC, there are four games with Canada playing Latvia at 4:30 pm ET. Sweden has an off day.

The PWHL is back in action with Toronto playing Montréal at Centre Bell at 2 pm. The takeover tour helped the PWHL set an attendance record for a single week with 72,082. The per game average just before the Christmas break was 7,936 per game, which says to me the PWHL is now a 10,000 seat arena league at minimum (since some games will naturally be above average).

Toronto is playing out of the 8,000 seat Coca-Cola Coliseum at capacity or close to it for their home games there so far this season. Their ability to grow the revenue stream is dependent on games played in larger arenas like today's contest in the Canadiens' rink, and it's not a surprise they show up in those games a lot. Toronto's lack of facilities is holding them back.

There are only four AHL teams averaging over that PWHL figure, Chicago, Hershey, Laval and Cleveland. The Marlies are at 5,371 so far this season.

No one involved in starting the PWHL expected this growth this fast.

At the WJC yesterday, Team Canada won their opener against Czechia 7-5 in a very close game where both teams held the lead at various times. It was not a defensive showcase.

Ben Danford had a very good game, playing nominally on the third pair, he was part of Dale Hunter's "the rest of them annoy me right now" unit with the second line. They came out after goals against, after "what is defence" plays by the forwards, and they acquitted themselves very well as the designated grownups.

There was only one error, if it should be called that, where Danford lost a battle for body position that led to a goal against. No one wins them all. He was excellent, and after two periods when the game was close, he was the second most used defender behind Zayne Parekh who Dale Hunter played heavily at five-on-five, particularly in the third when it was time to cement the win with offence, not a defensive shell.

Oh, and there was this too:

In other news, if you missed it yesterday, the Leafs have promoted the Marlies PP coach to the Leafs. Steve Sullivan was hired two years ago to be an assistant with the Marlies, and his coaching experience is all in Arizona and all with junior teams. He was in management with the Coyotes.

It makes sense given the obvious situation with the team right now that they would not go out and hire someone new. They don't know which direction the team will go in the standings, and they aren't indicating that they are doing anything in the short term but waiting to see if the ship rights itself of sinks.

Sullivan did coach Matt Knies once upon a time, and while he joined the Coyotes just after Brad Treliving left, Don Maloney, Treliving's mentor and former boss in both Arizona and Calgary, was GM at the time.

If you think the Marlies PP% can tell you if he's good or not, you can look that up, but his experience as a coach in pro hockey is very short, and he has no high-level junior experience above the U18 level. If we'd never heard of him before today, we would be shocked by this as an NHL coaching hire. It was reasonably unusual to have someone without elite junior or NCAA experience hired to an AHL job. Of course Treliving knows a lot more about Sullivan than the rest of us do.

Okay, stop reading online, pick a game and go watch it. Have some fun and enjoy a sport you love. Hockey is just a game, and it's meant to be fun.

From The Branches