Good morning and happy April to all of my favourite Toronto Maple Leafs fans, and hi, whatever to the rest of you.

Today used to be for shenanigans and nonsense but that time has passed. April fools died in 2020, goodbye old friend. What we have this morning is good news, and good news, and bad news.

The first good news, is the Maple Leafs defeated the Winnipeg Jets* last night 3-1 and in that game we saw Alex Kerfoot score his first career shorthanded goal and Jack Campbell improved to 7-0 on the season.

Leafs defense stifles Jets, Campbell wins again

Down in the AHL, the Toronto Marlies beat the Stockton (Calgary) Heat 5-2. The highlight of the night was when we got a very nice goal from our pair of Petes, Semyon Der-Arguchintsev and Nick Robertson.

In what could probably be called an April Fools joke, the Buffalo Sabres ended their 18 game losing streak with a 6-1 victory over the flailing Philadelphia Flyers.

Buffalo Snaps Record Streak at 18 Games

I’m going to try and not be too disappointed about this, I was hoping they would get to 20 games.

The late game last night, Vancouver Canucks vs Calgary Flames was postponed after several Canucks players and staff were placed on the COVID list.

Oh, here’s a neat thing I learned.

3

The Vancouver Canucks signed Thatcher Demko to a five year deal yesterday:

Canucks sign standout goalie Thatcher Demko to 5-year contract extension | CBC Sports

This means that next year they’ll be paying Demko $5.5 million and Brayden Holtby $4.3 million. Mmm mmm. That’s good stuff.

Finally, I’ll make a request to help out a great guy on his fundraiser:

Finish The Fight 400 w. The OHL Fanboys Podcast, organized by Steve McLean

“On Wednesday, April 28, 2021, Steve McLean of The OHL Fanboys will be taking part in the 7th Annual Finish The Fight 400 organized by the Championship Online Racing Teams series (CORT). The race was created in 2015 to initially raise money and awareness for cancer research. Since then the sim racers who take part in this event chose charities of any cause to represent and help raise funds. This year Steve will be representing and raising funds for McFadden’s Movement.

McFadden’s Movement was created by former Guelph Storm captain Garrett McFadden in September 2016 and is a non profit organization in support of mental health that strives to change, help, and develop mental health among athletes starting at the grass roots level. In addition to raising awareness, McFadden started fundraising for mental health resources, including WES for Youth Online, and the Canadian Mental Health Association Waterloo-Wellington branch in order to give back to the city and community of Guelph. To date, the Movement has raised over $57,000 and counting for mental health resources.”

The goal was $500, and they’ve hit the $1,000 mark. Every $5 you donate gets you a raffle ticket for prizes that include various CHL hockey jerseys, some game worn one off deisgns.

If you can, thank you for your help.

Enjoy your Thursday everyone.

From The Branches