It’s here! It’s time! It’s happening! The All-Star Weekend is officially upon us!

I don’t know about y’all, but after a week of being forced to confront how much time I spend watching this sport, I am very ready to forget any “lessons” I might take away from it and finally get back to watching the Toronto Maple Leafs. Or, three of them anyways. Well, two, but fingers crossed that Auston Matthews gets a chance to take the title of assistant coach for a spin, à la Nathan MacKinnon in 2019.

The first pieces of content from the weekend began to come out last night, as players began making the rounds with the media. Among the puppy photoshoots and social media clips, we finally got our first look at the All-Star jerseys on the players and folks.... they somehow look worse than they did in photographs ahead of time.

Yikes.

We’ll be sharing the deets on how to watch this weekend’s events later today, but until then, and until tonight, we’ve got some links to carry you through your Friday.

ICYMI

Are you annoyed with Tyson Barrie? Do other people keep telling you that the numbers say that you’re wrong to be annoyed? Well then do we ever have the article for you!

Tyson Barrie fails my eye test, but does it matter?

Jake Muzzin is headed down to terrorize rookies in the AHL for a little bit:

Maple Leafs send Jake Muzzin off to slay the Monster of Lake Erie

Learn more about Leafs prospect Mikhail Abramov, who had 28 goals and 52 points in the QMJHL so far this season as of when this article was published yesterday:

Looking at Mikhail Abramov’s remarkable transformation this season

Elsewhere

Speaking of prospects, Scott Wheeler has the Leafs at #21 in his ranking of teams’ prospect pools:

Wheeler's 2020 NHL prospect pool rankings: No. 21 Toronto...

The PHWA has awarded William Nylander with “Comeback Player of the Year Award” in their Midseason Awards, making them abruptly something that I care about very much:

William Nylander voted PHWA’s best Comeback Player at Midseason - TSN.ca

From The Athletic, on Auston Matthews and Frederik Andersen’s friendship:

When Auston met Freddy: Matthews and Andersen are BFFs with...

Players from the PWHPA attended the ECHL’s All-Star Classic in Kansas this week:

PWHPA shines at 2020 ECHL All-Star Classic

The Toronto Star recounts the night the Marlies forfeited their game to the Texas Stars:

There’s more to life than hockey — just ask the Marlies and recovering coach Rob Davison

And finally, some weird hockey stuff before we get to the real weird hockey stuff tonight (my personal favourite clip starts at 1:58... you can probably guess what it is):

Happy Friday!

From The Branches