Good morning, and Happy Wednesday to everyone. It's early March, the weather is weird, and – I enjoy reading these hot takes that em-dashes and things in threes mean something was written by AI.

Speaking of the weather, my local organic farm that delivers vegetables to my house posted about their early rush to planting various things. What they're doing, they explained, was surfing the wave of the weather and putting in some lettuce and spinach in hoop houses and even some less hardy seedlings in case the temperatures stay unnaturally hot.

There is a cost to this in materials and labour as well as time and emotional investment, but it might pay out. And the only way to eliminate the doubt is to do nothing and be sure there will be no early crops. So they choose to try it, and live with the result. They aren't going to start planting in January, but when there is some chance, they're taking it.

Yeah, totally about the weather and vegetables.

I tried on Monday to write what I think about the trade deadline and where the Leafs are at, and the choices in front of them. The thing is, this is actually a really big picture, big ideas sort of discussion. If you try to boil it down to a list of draft picks or players with trade protection (in case you live on earth, not planet tanking fantasy) you miss some crucial ideas. But if you focus on the ideas it stops becoming about the game.

I gave up. I might try again, but I might also focus just on the rhetorical tricks people play on themselves with the words they use. Tokens, symbols, vague ideas that can mean whatever they need to to advance an argument. Even that's a little too meta, but you can't bin draft picks forever without having to hear me complain about how much you're implicitly lying.

Makes a change from, "Your arguments using points are actually arguments showing how using points is so misleading."

Waiting. That's what we're doing. OMG, did you see what Berube did last night!!!!

Yeah, maybe I'll get to that in a bit, but this is the interregnum of inactivity we just need to sit through before the end of the regular season. In the social media age where you need a new take every day, this is a challenge. I've pretty much decided to meet this challenge by trying very hard to decide nothing, to be open to all possibilities. So not tanking, because, they can't. But to just sit with it and consider all possible approaches.

You know what's funny, though? I don't actually get a vote. The team will do what it does. I can wait for the future to arrive and it will arrive the same no matter what I think.

Did anything interesting happen last night? Kind of. The Leafs played appallingly bad for a period and seemed to find themselves again. It was 2-1 Montréal in the third, and then an ENG ended the really rather good attempt to tie it up.

The goal was pretty.

I'll forget by the next game, so the report on the three younger players comes now:

Cowan moved to the top six about halfway through and his line with Matthews and Nylander was really good. Matthews had been really deeply terrible in the first period with Knies and Domi.

Jacob Quillan played as the 4C with very low minutes and mad no impression one way or the other. He did play PK, which is going to keep him on the roster, I think.

Bo Groulx played as the 3C and got 12 minutes at five-on-five and played very well.

Cowan was really good. I think he got moved to the third line to start the game in a "spread the offence" attempt, but it just wasn't working.

I don't know if any of that means anything, but they came out of their funk and put in some serious trying most of the game.

Meanwhile the Kings and Boston, both with precarious playoff hopes, played to a tie to no one's surprise. Boston took it in OT, but the point is a point and keeps the Kings in the contest for the last spot in the west.

The Leafs are back home on Thursday to the Ducks and play a road back-to-back this weekend, as the schedule continues to be absurd.

Speaking of the playoff race in the west, look who's back!

Kraken activate G Murray (lower-body injury) from IR
The Seattle Kraken activated goaltender Matt Murray from Injured Reserve on Monday.
TSNTSN.ca Staff

And in the east, look who is out:

Senators’ D Sanderson out week-to-week amid playoff push
Ottawa Senators defenceman Jake Sanderson is week-to-week with an upper-body injury, head coach Travis Green told reporters Monday afternoon.
TSNTSN.ca Staff

The Avs lost Gabriel Landeskog to injury making that Kadri trade look like the only really smart deadline move anyone made.

Have a great day, everyone.

From The Branches