Good morning Toronto Maple Leafs fans!

In my travels as a professional hockey writer — shut up, I am so — I've had the chance to bother hockey players with many questions. Usually these are prospects and minor leaguers who don't know any better — never a Leaf because I'm not in the cool kids club, and whatever I didn't want to be anyway - and they revolved around such nonsense as "Hey isn't it weird that Lays chip bags are blue in the US and Green here?" Or just me hiding in a potted plant to get a good position in a scrum, then knocking said plant over mid scrum.

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I did talk to Taylor Hall once and I solved the boat license mystery.

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However, I don't know who's the ding dong in the Leafs locker room, but oh boy have we had some doozies.

Yesterday, after the Maple Leafs victory over the division leading Florida Panthers, some people tried to make the Canadian Men's Soccer teams World Cup qualifications all about the Leafs:

Sure, you have a job to do but these take the cake on silly questions. If I was there I'd ask how hard they tried to get Matthews a goal on his quest to 55, and if the plan was to always have him on the ice for an empty net goal chance, or “why the heck can you beat Florida and not Montréal, Jesus Christ you guys what the fuck?”

Okay that last one would have been my last but someone needs to be blunt!

Anyways, let's just stop trying to get players opinions on big events, they're just nice guys who try hard and love the game.

Also last night the Leafs beat the Panthers in my return to the SBA.

Leafs win while playing the Panthers even

I should go to more games.

In the playoff race, while the Leafs won, so did the Lightning - 4-1 over the Islanders - so the Leafs remain in third place in the Atlantic Division. They are tied with the Bruins in points, but have more regulation wins so they stay out of a Wild Card spot for now.

None of the Bruins, Panthers, or Lightning play tonight so there’s no scoreboard watching necessary.

Aside from the Leafs win I don’t think anything more exciting happened last night so....Enjoy your Monday!

From The Branches