The NHL All-Star Game is over. The winners were the Metropolitan Division, with Sidney Crosby as MVP. And, yes, they did bust out the gigantic novelty cheque for $1M dollars.

On the Maple Leafs side, John Tavares did the Atlantic Division proud and scored on this breakaway.

And some other stuff happened, I guess? To be honest, I got bored and tuned it out before the start of the final game.

At least the Marlies won last night. After being clobbered by the Belleville Senators yesterday in what Sheldon Keefe described as “a pretty thorough ass-kicking,” they managed a shootout win. The winning goal was by none other than Gabriel Gagne.

The AHL All-Star Skills Competition is tonight. Both Calle Rosen and Trevor Moore will be at the event, and Todd Crocker is there as an All-Star broadcaster. This year it’s actually available on cable. You can watch the Competition on Sportsnet ONE or stream it on AHL TV.

ICYMI

CWHL Recap: Thunder beat les Canadiennes 2-1 - mediajunkie
Two goals from Victoria Bach and an excellent performance from Erica Howe combined for the win!

NHL Tracking Data: Lies, Damn Lies and Data Viz on TV - Katya
The NHL is trying to modernize how it collects and presents statistics, but they’re adopting technology the rest of us already find obsolete.

Brianna Decker Passed the Skills Test but the NHL Failed - Katya
The NHL only partly included four women hockey players in the All-Star Skills competition, and paid the wrong person $25,000.

Site News

The Maple Leafs start their bye-week today and will not play again until Friday February 1st, but we have a huge amount of content lined up for you for this week. We already have articles done and scheduled for each day, and more on the way.

Here’s a sample of headlines of articles to come this week:

  • Morgan Rielly and Jake Gardiner are the Leafs top pair
  • Leafs’ Top 25 Under 25: Mid-season Roundtable
  • NHL, AHL and ECHL Hockey Contracts 101
  • How did last year’s post-roster-freeze trades work out?
  • Last year’s trade deadline frenzy revisited/

This is in addition to all our regular features, such as FTB’s full of cat GIFs and Women’s Hockey Wednesday.

Other News

Video: Tavares and Stamkos look back on their shared hockey history - Sportsnet
John Tavares and Steven Stamkos talk about their life long connection that started with playing hockey together at a young age in Toronto and the possibility of a Maple Leafs and Lightning playoff series.

Lots Going To Change In Toronto Sports Media World – Toronto Sports Media Blog
The Globe and Mail is officially dead as a sports outlet. With all due respect to those who write for the paper, it’s gone, over, kaput. The Star and Sun remain, audiences are flat at best and the Athletic dominating from a content perspective. I am not talking about business models, the best damn content available to the sports fan on a regular basis online (text only) is on the Athletic (not including “blogs”).

From The Branches