Last night, Zach Hyman returned to the Leafs and it just so happened to come against the same team that put him on the injured list — the New Jersey Devils. So of course Zach Hyman made his presence known through the whole game, getting a point and helping contribute to two of the Leafs’ other goals.

He even avoided taking advantage of the easy tap in empty net goal — also known as the Zach Hyman special — to allow his teammate, Mitch Marner, get the goal. What a great teammate!

It was another (mostly) dominant looking game for the Leafs, albeit against a struggling Devils team that was missing Taylor Hall due to injury. The team as a whole seemed to still go through periods of falling into a bored, borderline napping phase for a good chunk of the game like they have through the whole year.

At some point the Leafs’ young core will be in their primes, with more experience, better shape, and better professional attitude that you can see from the Tampa Bay Lightning and how they keep their boots on the opponent’s necks through a whole game. Or at least better/more often than the Leafs seem to. In the past year or two, we saw the Leafs completely fall apart and turn leads into losses. Now the Leafs just sort of struggle with consistency and have little lulls rather than fall apart, and now they just make games they win more interesting than they should be... but they still win.

Just wait until we trade Brown, Bracco and a 2nd for Pietrangelo or Hamilton or something.

If you want to get some more great podcast content from PPP, except it’s not on PPP at all, you can hear a Mid-Season Report Card Edition of Ian Tulloch’s podcast featuring guest star, Acting the Judas.  Between this and Kevin’s partial defection to MLHS, I’m taking bets on when Elseldo gets lured to TLN with the promise of totebags.

Hockey player and scholar: The many layers of Eamon McAdam, the Marlies’ journeyman goalie | by Scort Wheeler at The Athletic

Meanwhile, Sean Durzi made his debut with the Guelph Storm in what was a pretty crazy 6-5 overtime win, in which Durzi had five shots, was +3, and had three primary assists including on the game tying goal:

Around the NHL, we saw the mess of a relationship between the Blue Jackets and Bobrovsky have some gasoline poured on top.

Have a great Friday everyone!

What 2018 Leafs draft pick has had the most surprisingly good season?

Rasmus Sandin264
Sean Durzi30
Mac Hollowell104
Pontus Holmberg31
From The Branches