Tomorrow, the Toronto Maple Leafs will take on the St Louis Blues to finally end their bye week. Six miserable days of football filling my timeline and I’m sick of it!

It’ll be an interesting test for the Leafs. The Blues are one of the top teams in the league, though they are still missing one of their best players in Jaden Schwartz and have scuttled with a 4-5-1 record in their last 10 games. The Leafs meanwhile have played two of their better games on this home stand but blown both due to awfully times defensive miscues.

For added (non-)drama, we’ll see today or tomorrow if the Leafs call anyone up from the Marlies. Namely, Travis Dermott and Frederik Gauthier. The former might be welcome, the latter.... could use some more seasoning, is the nicest way I’ll put it.

ONTO THE LINKS!

European Report: Carl Grundström shoots a lot and several players notched assists | by Katya

CWHL Recap: Red Star sweep the Furies, Thunder fall to Rays in the shootout | by nafio and Annie

The only stat that matters is goals | by Katya

Rielly is performing like a number one defenceman despite optimal circumstances | by Dylan Fremlin at The Leafs Nation.

Toronto Marlies Fortnight in Review – Back on track with a four-game winning streak – January 12 | by Mark Rackham at MLHS with a quick summary of the Marlies over the past while.

A two-fer from Justin Bourne at the Athletic filed under ICYMI:

Roman Polak, bench dynamics, and how a coaching staff decides who plays when | a good read for those of us who want Polak gone yesterday.

Leafs D is now a rotation, but Travis Dermott’s play is going to end that quickly | with some video clips breaking down the little things Dermott has done well so far.

AROUND THE NHL

Sebastian Aho was knocked out of the game after taking this big hit by Mark Giordano. Apparently it was more the knee-on-knee part of the hit that seriously injured Aho, but regardless Giordano got a game misconduct after all was said and done.

The Detroit Red Wings shut out the Chicago Blackhawks 4-0, which is hilarious because: 1) fuck the Blackhawks, 2) it was the Red Wings, 3) fuck the Blackhawks, and 4) the Blackhawks are out of a playoff spot.

Finally, the Vegas Golden Knights held their first fanfest ever, and it had a pretty remarkable turnout. This big success for a first year expansion franchise is amazing, which makes me think when Seattle gets their shot at it the other NHL teams will bitch and moan about how unfair the expansion draft was and the NHL will scale it back to make it harder on Seattle.

Have a great Monday everyone!

What are you most looking forward to for the bye week ending?

Roman Polak taking more minor penalties34
Leo Komarov starting more 3 on 3 overtimes11
Frederik Gauthier getting in more NHL games10
People bitching non-stop about all of the above161
From The Branches