It’s been a good weekend in hockey in the land of the Toronto Maple Leafs—they beat the Montreal Canadiens for the first time in a long time, the Marlies won two of three weekend games, and other divisional teams are hilariously bad (or at least keep losing), and Auston Matthews is still a hockey God that plays for Toronto!

Let’s get right to the links!

Fulemin takes a look at some interesting stats and numbers for the Leafs’ first five games. The most important stat: the Leafs are 4-1. The second most important stat: they beat Vomit City 4-3.

Speaking of beating Vomit City and Austy Matthman, Janik breaks down Matthews’ first goal and how ridiculous it was. WARNING: this article has a 100% chance of making all readers pregnant.

MLHS recaps the Marlies’ 2-1 win yesterday, matching the Leafs’ 4-1-0 record. Fun notes: first, Bracco got his first point assisting Ben Smith’s team-leading third goal of the year on a 2 on 1.

Second, Kasimir Kaskisuo got the win, making him the third Marlies goalie to get a win in their 5 games.

Katya talked about how everyone’s talking about Calvin Pickard, one of the other Marlies’ goalies with a win.

Around The NHL

The Buffalo Sabres took on the Anaheim Ducks last night, which brought out this hilarious factoid after the Sabres opened the scoring...

Oh BuffaLOL... never change.

Another Atlantic team, the Boston Bruins, were taking on the Vegas Golden Knights and the goalie prospect they just waived earlier this year. The result, well...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Added context: Subban came within less than a minute of shutting the Bruins out, which is even better!

Question for Monday

Fanposter cherrypicker38 asked if we should be talking more about the JVR - Bozak - Marner line, and maybe breaking them up. Marner and company have been talked about this season as being something of a disappointment, but I’ll throw in my two cents here to get it started:

First, Fulemin pointed out in his article linked above that their line is around 56% of shots at even strength when they’re on the ice. Second, they have 6 goals and 8 assists between them in 5 games so they’re producing. Third, part of the disappointment is that they’ve seemed to be even worse defensively this year than they have been in the past, despite being more sheltered—something Tyler Dellow looked at ahead of Saturday night’s game. But you know all those goals Andersen’s been giving up that we wince at, because while they’re not AWFUL goals... we’d still like him to stop them? Well, that line has apparently been on the ice for a lot of those.

So the line is still putting up all the points, they’re generating more shots for than they have against, and their defense looks worse due to poor goaltending (in SSS). And yeah, I know they could be contributing to the scoring chances against being bad, but I don’t think you’ll see them on the ice for as many goals against all year.

Happy Monday everyone!

From The Branches