Tonight the Toronto Maple Leafs renew the Battle of Ontario vs the Ottawa Senators for the first time this season, which —aside from the other side’s general and utter irrelevance in the grand scheme of things — is usually an entertaining affair.

It’s a good time for fans of both sides to grab a beer...

...put on some parachute pants...

...and watch the SNES completely embarrass themselves again, and again, and again.

Real talk time: the Sens have some fun players. Erik Karlsson is one of the most exciting players in the game, and has been for years, and now has the added intrigue of playing with some weird zombie-voodoo-magic ankle. Kyle Turris, Mark Stone and Mike Hoffman are underrated stars who would be bigger names if they weren’t stuck playing in front of paltry audiences.

Oh well, at least there are Leafs fans around to appreciate them and this rivalry.

ONTO THE LINKS!

Arvind takes a look at potential replacement options for James van Riemsdyk and/or Tyler Bozak, if they wind up needing to be replaced. OH MY GOD YES PLEASE TO HORNQVIST!

MLHS shares some quotes from Mike Babcock on Auston Matthews, Andreas Borgman, and other general Leafs tidbits.

TLN touches on what I talked about above... we could all use another Leafs-Sens playoff series.

The Athletic churned out some good content lately that’s worth reading, so hope you have some tea with you! (Not coffee. It is gross and I will not condone your drinking it)

1) Justin Bourne looks at whether or not Marner really is bad defensively.

2) From two days ago, but I only got to it last night: Pronman looks into three Leafs’ defense prospects and how they’re doing.

In Toronto Marlies/Orlando Solar Bears news, the Leafs decided they didn’t need three really good goalies in the AHL and so Kasimir Kaskisuo drew the short straw and wound up being sent to Orlando.

In pretty cool news, the CWHL’s new Chinese expansion team the Kunlun Red Stars will play their first game in Brampton this weekend and Annie previews the historic game.

AROUND THE LEAGUE

The Detroit Red Wings held a late one goal lead, whiffed on an empty net goal chance and immediately gave up the tying goal before Ovechkin scored his 10th goal in 8 games to win in overtime.

Another Atlantic team lost a 4-3 game, with Connor Sheary scoring the game winning goal with less than 3 minutes in the game to help the Penguins beat the Florida Panthers.

Sticking in the AtLOLantic division, the Buffalo Sabres were outshot 41 to 22 by the VANCOUVER CANUCKS! and lost 4-2. This included being outshot 37-13 in the first two periods. And adding injury to insult...

And, I saved the best for last... the listless Montreal Canadiens went into Anaheim with a chance to get their season turned around. Anaheim was missing: Ryan Getzlaf, Ryan Kesler, Patrick Eaves, Sami Vatanen, and Hampus Lindholm all with injuries and were the dead last place team by CF% going into the game. Cam Fowler left the game early in the first period with an injury, and they proceeded to get outshot 21-7 and outscored 3-0 IN THE FIRST PERIOD. It was too much of a hole for them to dig themselves out of despite having 30!!! shots on goal in the second period themselves. They made it 3-2, but wound up completely falling apart again in the third period — led by the always calm and angelic Andrew Shaw, but also included a bit of a temper tantrum by Carey Price:

As you can imagine, their fans were extremely level-headed and calm about this development.

I’m going to keep going because it’s late Friday night, I’m a few drinks in, and I just can’t stop.

Have a great weekend folks!

GO LEAFS GO!

What’s the funniest part of the Habs game last night?

Andrew Shaw getting filled in by Bieksa, charging at him to get revenge and getting knocked down again62
Setting a franchise record for 30 shots in a period and still losing... by a lot25
Losing 6-2 to what is basically Silfverberg and a series of mannequins with AHL jerseys on68
Their $10.5 million AAV savior goalie throwing a temper tantrum over how bad his team is94
From The Branches