Good morning, and I hope you enjoyed Thanksgiving.  If you are American, I hope you enjoyed your country’s [checks notes] decaying democratic legitimacy.  Anyway, one of our favourite Americans had a spread in Sharp magazine recently.

Auston Matthews, for those of you who do not know, has a unique personal style in that he spends many thousands of dollars to dress in the most bizarre fashion possible.  It is terrific, and I admire it almost as much as his goal-scoring.  You can read and view the whole piece here, but I wanted to specifically share a couple of looks from #34.

When you’re working out with kettlebells, but you’re also a stick of spearmint gum.

“Now I will show you the true power of Ice-type Pokemon!”

The coat speaks for itself, in that it defies my ability to describe it, but also, why is he standing on top of a car? Because he’s dope.

All kidding aside, it’s great that Matthews has a personality and that he’s free to ball out with it.  Your star just talks about getting pucks deep.  Our star dresses like he’s the head of a post-apocalyptic crime syndicate.

Don’t fuck with Papi.

Your links:

ICYMI

Back to Excited Episode 33: System’s Got Me Down Arvind and I talk about The System and other things from the first three Leaf games in our latest podcast.

Toronto Marlies Recap: The Marlies Need Practice by Hardev.  Sam Gagner is enjoying his time with the Marlies, but the team needs some work to get back into championship form.

Other Stuff

Maple Leafs Nation: The Do’s And Dont’s Of Managing The Salary Cap.  Scott Maxwell over at TLN looks to the Blackhawks for guidance on how you maintain a competitive team in a cap league.  I’m not sure whether it was realistic to expect the Hawks to deal out their core right at the start of its decline, though.

The Athletic: The Pressure Is On Mike Babcock To Get The Maple Leafs To Play Better Defensively.  Justin Bourne argues it’s time for Mike Babcock to earn his money, by making his offensively brilliant stars play defence that is not, to use the technical term, ass-butt.

Maple Leafs Hot Stove: Game #3 Review.  Alex Brownscombe offers his thoughts on Sunday night’s game.

Deadspin: Ilya Kovalchuk Is Back And He Doesn’t Look Half Bad I feel like people forget just how good Kovy was.  For his whole NHL career, he’s at a 42-goal per season pace.

Knights On Ice: Golden Knights Fall To Sabres 4-2 In Sloppy Road Defeat If I keep predicting long enough that the Knights will regress to average, sooner or later I have to be correct, don’t I?

Silver Seven Sens: Bergeron, Pastrnak Help Bruins Double Up Sens 6-3 I know they were lucky enough to beat us on Saturday, but seriously, the Sens are bad.

Lighthouse Hockey: Islanders 4, Sharks 0  Matt Martin scored!  In other news, the Sharks have apparently not figured out the right way to set up a power play with the two best offensive defencemen in the NHL on it yet.

The Detroit-Anaheim game was on late, and I have work in the morning, so I’ll just make stuff up.  The Red Wings lost 12-0 despite out-shooting Anaheim 39 to 6.  Randy Carlyle burned his hand on an electric Christmas ornament.  Jimmy Howard attempted to retire mid-game but was dragged back to the net by the police.  Ryan Getzlaf continued to look like a bank manager.

As always, feel free to add your own links in the comments.

From The Branches