Hurray!

The Toronto Maple Leafs signed the cornerstone of their new era of winning to a five year contract extension yesterday; a little piece of news you may have heard.

Updated: Auston Matthews deal officially done

Now that William Nylander and Auston Matthews are signed, that leaves one player left to listen to months and months of public negotiations about: Mitchell Marner.

What’s that you say? Didn’t Marner’s agent say he isn’t going to negotiate during the season?

He did, but then he quickly changed his mind:

Read the full story here:

Maple Leafs have lowballed Mitch Marner in contract talks, agent says

This is interesting, because when the evil, greedy, horrible, William Nylander was negotiating no one in his camp went public. Mitch Marner - good old Ontario boy, blessed Leafs fan, not evil Swede - now has his agent throwing temper tantrums in the newspaper and his batshit crazy dad running around to The Athletic and TSN asking questions like “WHY ISN’T MY SON CAPTAIN YET?”.

I can’t wait for Marner to go unsigned into next season.

Moving on.

The Maple Leafs tweeted out a picture of the contract being signed:

They blanked out the writing after the Bracco signing picture had people playing detective on the upside down papers. Of course this lead to shenanigans.

Lost in the Matthews talk was Katya’s look back at the February trades:

How did last year’s post-roster-freeze trades work out?

A look ahead at the playoffs from a long time Leafs fan:

See You There

A summary of the Kyle Dubas press conference:

Kyle Dubas on the Toronto Maple Leafs' cap situation: "We know that next season will be our toughest year" | Maple Leafs Hotstove

Bad news for the Canucks:

Vancouver Canucks Alexander Edler Out With Concussion

Oh no. The Sabres are bad.

One-Dimensional Thinking is Hurting the Sabres

Disagree. Mess it up.

Rangers Must Resist Temptation to Expedite the Rebuild

Finally, the Kootenay Ice is leaving BC for Winnipeg. Now we can see if a town with nothing else to do can support an NHL, AHL, and WHL team.

ICE To Meet You

FYI the closest team is 2.5 hours away. The second closest team is 6 hours away.

I give it 6 years.

Enjoy your day!

From The Branches