BREAKING NEWS!

In a shocking twist, a letter was delivered to the PPP mailbox this morning that reveals a truth no one dared believe: there is a spy in our midst! The letter reads thus:

“My dear Fam, I suggest you stir yourself to make a few enquiries about the young woman whose name is appended on the attached fragment of hockey. You probably know Ivan—if you know him at all—as an athleticus of some accomplishment. What you do not know but ought to is that he is no mean linguist nor yet a total idiot either...

“Hence our Ivan’s wide familiarity with parts foreign, and his rather parentless look, which I find irresistible. By the way: though he is made up of all different bits of Europe, make no mistake: the completed version is devoutly our own. At present, he is a bit of a striver and a puzzler, for he has just noticed that there is a World Beyond the Touchline and that world is me.

“But you must first hear how I met him.

“As you know, it is my habit (and your command) now and then to put on Habs costume and go down to the vomitories, there to sit among the great unwashed and give ear to the word of their prophets, that I may in due course better confound them. The juju man en vogue that evening came from the bosom of Mother Russia herself: one Academician Voracek, presently attached to the Soviet Embassy in London, a jolly, rather infectious little ginger, who managed some quite witty things among the usual nonsense. The vomitorium in question was a debating club called Les Habitants—our rival, dear Fam, and well known to you from other forays I have occasionally made. After the sermon a wildly proletarian coffee was served, to the accompaniment of a dreadfully democratic bun, and I noticed this large fellow sitting alone at the back of the room, apparently too shy to mingle. His face was familiar from the cricket field; it turns out we both played in some silly scratch team without exchanging a word. I don’t quite know how to describe him. He has it, Fam. I am serious now.

“He has that heavy quiet that commands. Hard-headed, quite literally. One of those shrewd quiet ones that lead the team without anyone noticing. Fam, you know how hard it is for me to act. You have to remind me all the time, intellectually remind me, that unless I sample life’s dangers I shall never know its mysteries.

“ ‘Yavas Lagloo,’ says I, which I understand is Russian for meet me in the woodshed or something similar, and he says ‘Oh, hullo,’ which I think he would have said to the Archangel Gabriel if he’d happened to be passing.“ ‘What is your dilemma?’ says I.“ ‘I haven’t got one,’ says he, after about an hour’s thought.“ ‘Then what are you doing here? If you haven’t a dilemma, how did you get in?’“So he gives a big placid grin and we saunter over to the great Voracek, shake his ginger paw for a while, then toddle back to my rooms. Where we drink. And drink. And, Fam, he drank everything in sight. Or perhaps I did, I forget. And come the dawn, do you know what we did? I will tell you, Fam. We walked solemnly down to the Parks, I sit on a bench with a stop-watch, and big Sean gets into his running kit and lopes twenty circuits. Twenty. I was quite exhausted.

“We can come to you any time; he asks nothing better than to be in my company or that of my wicked, divine friends. In short, he has appointed me his Mephistopheles and I am vastly tickled by the compliment. By the by, he is virgin, about eight feet tall, and built by the same firm that did Stonehenge. Do not be alarmed.”

I am afraid that it is true, PPP has a mole in our midst whose heart was lured away from us by that eight foot tall Stonehengian Russian... Ivan Provorov. That mole is none other than Annie.

Sure she’s from Philadelphia, and was originally a Flyers fan, and never claimed to be otherwise but I for one am SHOCKED at how we have allowed an enemy into our midst on this, the eve of our beloved Toronto Maple Leafs and their battle with her Philadelphia Flyers. For all that she professes to be a fan of Auston Matthews, Wee William Nylander, or Magic Mitch Marner... it is clear that they, and we, are not her priority. If we are not careful, she may lure others from our flock to stray, and soften their hearts to our one-time hated rival from Pennsylvania.

Then again, they do have quite a lot of gingers on their team. And Nolan Patrick that fought David Krejci. And a guy nicknamed Ghost Bear. And Wayne Simmonds.

GAH! SHE’S ALREADY GOTTEN TO ME!

Run! Run and save yourselves! We have already been infiltrated too deeply!

ONTO THE LINKS!

Katya released Part 2 in her “6 in 5” series, looking at how the Leafs have fared in the last 5 games compared to Babcock’s goal.

Katya also looked at what’s going on with the new lines during yesterday’s practice.

Fulemin released his latest Mailbag yesterday and it has very little to do with the Leafs or hockey and everything to do with silliness and tomfulery. Just the way we like it.

MLHS shares some quotes from Babcock yesterday concerning JVR’s health, Leivo’s status, and more.

Tyler Dellow looks at how the Eastern Conference teams’ “top 6 and bottom 6” forward lines have fared. The TL;DR for the Leafs? Dellow thinks they and the Blue Jackets are legit, and the Leafs’ “bottom 6” has had the worst save percentage behind them of any other team in the conference, so maybe we’re due some good regression?

In Marlies’ news, Kevin did some quick scouting on some key Marlies players so far this year that’s definitely worth a read.

Speaking of the Marlies, they earned a 4-2 road win over Syracuse last night. Aaltonen got his first goal as a Marlie, with Greening adding two goals and Johnsson potting the empty netter. Liljegren got an assist, giving him 5 points in 7 games.

There was also some Solar Bears news to do with some roster moves they made.

AROUND THE NHL

The Vegas Golden Knights beat up the Colorado Avalanche 7-0, with 7 different scorers and some guy named Oscar Dansk picking up the shutout, making him Sweden’s new Dansking Queen.

The Senators annoyingly scored two goals with less than two minutes in the game to tie it up, with the tying goal coming from Chris DiDomenico. Yes, THAT Chris DiDomenico. I for one am thoroughly annoyed that they’re a likeable team. Ottawa shouldn’t be allowed to have a likeable team. It was Chris’ first NHL goal a full decade after he was first drafted. Thankfully Condon lost his jockstrap in the shootout on this dangle:

So the Sens’ record falls to 5-1-5.

Pfft, whatever Sens. The Leafs were losing all the shootouts last year before it was cool. Quit biting our style like some Bratty little brother!

The Carolina Hurricanes might have lost to the St Louis Blues by a score of 2-1, but they spin you right round baby right round like a record, baby, right round round round.

Happy Saturday, everyone! Even those moles that are in our midst.

What Is Annie’s True Identity

The Tinker17
The Tailor9
The Soldier1
The Spy36
From The Branches