After an endless barrage of Leafs games to start this season, we now enter a week where the Leafs will only be playing two games: Tuesday’s matchup against the Capitals and Saturday’s visit to Philadelphia. We’ll see how long it takes before we all start complaining about being bored and missing hockey.

In the absence of Leafs games, there are always Leafs prospects – in particular Nick Robertson and Semyon Der-Arguchintsev have continued to terrorize the OHL, somewhat literally with Robertson getting the final goal of a hat-trick shorthanded Saturday night before the entire thing devolved into a brawl. In case you missed the first one, this was actually SDA’s second fight of the season – turns out our collective son is a bit of a goon.

ICYMI: the newest episode of Back to Excited covers the case for firing Babcock, Saturday’s game against the Habs, and the underwhelming pairing of 34 and 16

Back to Excited Episode 78: Coaching Changes, Why Matthews & Marner don’t work

Dillon won’t be facing any discipline for his hit on Matthews during Friday night’s game [insert fake gasp of surprise here]

Sharks’ Brenden Dillon won’t face discipline for Auston Matthews hit

Who doesn’t love an article about how ridiculous Matthews has been to start the year

Toronto Maple Leafs: Auston Matthews Has Quietest Hall of Fame Start to Season Ever

The Marlies’ winning streak has finally been broken (RIP)

Toronto Marlies' winning streak comes to an end with overtime loss in Binghamton | Maple Leafs Hotstove

And The Hockey News shares their list of the most surprising player from each team so far this season

Who has been the most surprising player for each NHL team to start 2019-20? - TheHockeyNews

Happy Monday!

From The Branches