Nope, it’s still not over. The preseason slowly grinds on with another game tonight between the Maple Leafs and the Canadiens. Two days ago the Leafs “B” team trounced the Habs, shutting them out and humiliating them on their home ice.

Tonight the action will be in Toronto and all indications are that the Leafs will put out their top players. The game starts at 7:00 p.m. and will be on TSN. We’ll have a preview out later this morning when player lines are confirmed or any additional cuts to the roster are made.

It’s very unlikely they will hold out on the cuts until tomorrow. It may happen this morning, or even after tonight’s game, but there should be news soon.

ICYMI
Here’s what we wrote about yesterday.

Prospect report: Opening weekend goes well in Peterborough - ElSeldo
A 3 point per game pace is perfectly sustainable.

Leafs practice lines with the special teams nearly in final form - Katya
Power play two is going to be interesting.

Maple Leafs release Neuvirth for PTO and recall Kaskisuo - Katya
Michal Neuvirth, we hardly knew you.

Other News

The Oilers are already in midseason form, losing badly at home to other terrible teams.

Hurricanes Trade Faulk to Blues for Edmundson and Bokk - Canes Country
The trades have begun! The Carolina Hurricanes acquired defenseman Joel Edmundson, Dominik Bokk, and a seventh-round draft pick for defenseman Justin Faulk and a fifth-round draft pick.

Boeser, Fantenberg In Concussion Protocol - Nucks Misconduct
The news from the Canucks is not good, as they lost 2 players to dirty hits in last night’s win over the Senators.

If you haven’t seen the clip yet, here is the hit that put Brock Boeser into concussion protocol. Note that he played out the remainder of that game, which is causing some to question how well the protocol could work and why in a preseason game he wasnt told simply to sit it out.

Auston Matthews

You have probably now heard the news that broke yesterday regarding Auston Matthews. He did something dumb and ignorant in Scottsdale, Arizona, at the residential complex where he lives in the off-season. It resulted in a charge of Disorderly Conduct and a court case.

You can read the factual details of what happened as published in the Toronto Star at this link.

The Maple Leafs current official statement is as follows:

The Toronto Maple Leafs are aware of the complaint of disturbing the peace against forward Auston Matthews. Auston is cooperating fully with the relevant authorities but neither he nor the Club will comment any further out of respect for the process involved.

There is a procedural court event scheduled for today which will likely be very well covered by the media, though the legal significance of it is not known to me.

Those are the facts for now. There has been no announcement about what, if any, further action the team will take on the matter. They appeared to be caught unprepared with their pants down yesterday. If there is anything more they have to say, it will probably be said today.

Update:

There’s a tweet going around that includes a quote that is inaccurate, so this is the “I listened to it three times” transcript of the salient line. /KK

From The Branches