Good morning Toronto Maple Leafs fans and others who saw this link in a news feed and needed something to read.

We have some actual news for you today, which is good, because I don’t like vamping until I hit the minimum word count.

First up, last nights game:

The Colorado Avalanche shut out the Edmonton Oilers 4-0, and took a 2-0 series lead.

Recap: Avalanche take Game 2 with Pavel Francouz shutout

It’s just a shame really, the Oilers are going to get eliminated, win nothing, but their fans will pretend it’s a huge victory and try and lord it over everyone else. I guess we could let them have that.

In the NHL Awards world, Darryl Sutter won the Jack Adams Award for coach of the year. The Flames bench boss finally has a Jack Adams after 21ish seasons of being a Head Coach in the NHL.

Flames head coach Darryl Sutter named 2021-22 Jack Adams Award winner

Next up on my list is the Arizona Coyotes and Tempe City Council. The Coyotes don’t have a deal yet, but Tempe city council has voted to continue negotiating with the franchise about building an entertainment complex.

Coyotes arena deal takes next step after Tempe council votes to open negotiations

It’s not done, but they will continue to study the concept, and have public input before spending hundreds of millions of dollars of public money on a plaything for a sports team. A team who is notorious for not paying rent, taxes, bills, etc...

Sounds like a great idea!

Finally, to get a little inside baseball for you, our collogues to the south in Vox Union are negotiating a new contract with the bosses before the current one expires on June 13th. I want to send my support to our Brothers & Sisters working hard at the table.

Everyone loves Jon Bois, and he’s got a nice thread about it.

Tonight, the New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Lightning play game two of the Eastern Conference Final at 8. Enjoy if you watch, I’ll probably be not doing that.

Have a great day!

From The Branches