Tonight, the Leafs have another big test of their new look lineup, which might be even newer if Gardiner isn’t ready to go. The Penguins, after “struggling” a lot of the year, seem to have rejuvenated back into looking like contenders again. Matt Murray came back from his personal leave and is on a good run, Crosby’s absurdly low shooting percentage shockingly started creeping up, and Kessel is entering into Art Ross territory apparently (although not willingly):

The Leafs meanwhile are 9-1-0 in their last 10 games. They’re scoring lots of goals, and everything is rather jolly... except for Gardiner’s health. Auston Matthews is almost a point per game player with 47 in 49 games, Frederik Andersen is putting himself into the Vezina conversation, Mitchell Marner has 13 points in his last 10 games thanks to being moved to Nazem Kadri’s wing, and William Nylander is tied with Marner at 45 points. If I take out my The Athletic-Brand “On Pace For” Calculator(TM) that would put them at 62 points, a 1 point improvement for each from last year!

ONTO THE LINKS!

Pyeongchang 2018: High-stakes schedule | by Annie and nafio

Maple Leafs reported to be in on Luke Glendening | by Katya & Fulemin

Toronto Maple Leafs Trade Nikita Soshnikov to St. Louis Blues for 2019 Fourth-Round Pick | by Katya and Fulemin

Behind the Save: Frederik Andersen’s performance through heavy workload puts him in Vezina discussion | by Cat Silverman at The Athletic

Should the Leafs target John Carlson this summer? | by Connor Bromley at TLN

Leafs Notebook – What should the Toronto Maple Leafs do with James van Riemsdyk? | by Anthony Petrilli at MLHS

If you want to watch or listen to the PuckTalks panels from last week, you can find them here:

1) The first panel, with Kristen Shilton, Steve Dangle, Scort Wheeler, and some muppet who constantly interrupted everyone.

2) The second panel, with Chris Johnston, Justin Bourne, James Mirlte, and Tyler Dellow.

AROUND THE NHL

Isles won, Stars won, Jets won, Flyera won.

The big news is that Canada’s national embarrassment, Don Cherry, decided to see how much further he could push CBC and Rogers before they actually have the balls to fire him.

Here is where I was going to share a tweet with a quote of some of the shit he said, but I won’t even bother waste anyone’s time. You can look it up if you really want to, but it’s actually not anything new or surprising coming from him.

So let me spoil the future: CBC and Rogers are spineless fuckwits who won’t fire him even 10 years after his bloated corpse still vomits outs bigoted bullshit from the hot wind blowing out his ass from behind his Coach’s Corner desk.

What should the Leafs do at the trade deadline?

They need to improve their center depth above all else20
They need a RHD to kick Polak down the depth chart68
They need to trade their pending UFAs for something of future value41
They need to move Leo to 4C, to open up the wing for Andreas Johnsson a the 4LW just because Leivo still wouldn’t get into the lineup but no one would care because ooooh new shiny prospect!67
From The Branches