WEdnesday’s FTB: Why is the NHL afraid of Halloween?

It’s almost Halloween Toronto Maple Leafs fans!

I was looking at the Maple Leafs schedule, and thought it was odd that the Leafs had such a big gap between games - Tuesday to Saturday - since they usually play on Wednesday’s or Thursday’s.

Then opened up the NHL schedule to see what the lesser teams were up to, and there are only two games tonight - Flames @ Predators and Canadiens @ Golden Knights. Which, again, is odd for a Thursday.

So, I looked back on previous Halloween’s and the NHL seems to be afraid to schedule games on today, the holiest days of the Hot Topic calendar.

Halloween 2018 - One game
Halloween 2017 - Three games
Halloween 2016 - NO GAMES

Halloween 2015 broke the pattern with ten games scheduled, BUT that Halloween was on a Saturday. I remember that one...oh we took home four grocery bags of candy. What a blessed day.

Halloween 2014 - Four games
Halloween 2013 - Three games
Halloween 2012 - NO GAMES

What is going on NHL? Are you afraid of ghosts coming into the arena and possessing the players? Does the thought of zombies on skates terrify you? Is the idea of fans coming to games in costume too much for your over the top security theater?

A lot of people say it’s so the players that have kids can take them trick or treating, and that makes a lot of sense, but forgive me for having a hard time believing the league wants to do things for the benefits of the players - looks at Department of Player Safety.

Anyway, here’s the news.

In case you missed it yesterday, Kevin Gravel was sent down to the Marlies:

Maple Leafs return Kevin Gravel to the Marlies to make room for Travis Dermott

However, he may be back up after Tom Wilson tried to single handedly destroy the Maple Leafs defense last night:

Toronto Maple Leafs game recap: The Leafs started on time, but got Tom Wilson’d