Voting for the 2020 NHL Fan Choice awards officially started yesterday, and will stay open until June 1, 2020. The Leafs are represented in several categories, and horribly snubbed in several others.

Auston Matthews appears a couple times, first in the Best Dressed category. If you’d like a refresher on some of the banger looks he put out this year, you can check the entire back catalogue of Annie’s fashion recaps here. For my part, I would argue that though he does have some fairly spectacular misses, he does actually like fashion and dresses outside of the NHL norm accordingly, and you have to give him credit for being interesting and taking risks, even if he’s not always being perfect. Unfortunately, they put a photo of David Pastrnak wearing the best suit in existence in the poll, so I had to vote for the enemy.

Fashion Recap: Winter formal

The second time he appears is for best social follow which is either Toronto bias in effect or just a scathing commentary on the excitement level of most hockey players’ social media presence. Frederik Andersen also makes an appearance, in his disguise of Fred Sheeran.

So low effort and yet so upsettingly accurate! Also not to sound like someone who had homemade halloween costumes every year as a kid, I just don’t think store-bought costumes should count towards any sort of best costume contest.

The section that I was truly shocked that there wasn’t any contenders from the Leafs was in the goals of the year. I know there’s only four options for each category but seriously? They did include a goal against the Leafs by Connor McDavid though, which honestly felt like they were twisting the knife a little bit.

Pictured above: not a goal of the year. Pictured below: also not a goal of the year.

Honestly the leafs probably had better goals this year, but I can’t remember anything further back than a week ago, so please feel free to tell me what goals I should have suggested instead in the comments.

And finally Carlton is up for best mascot, and Scotiabank Arena for best building. Go forth and vote!

NHL Fan Choice Awards

ICYMI

Yesterday was the 2-year anniversary of Kyle Dubas being appointed the general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Check out our complete retrospective on his tenure thus far here:

Kyle Dubas was named Leafs GM 2 years ago today

The AHL officially pulled the plug on the 2019-20 season yesterday, and Katya has you covered with a look at what exactly that means, and how this might force changes in the way the AHL operates:

AHL season officially cancelled

Related to this, all Marlies players who wouldn’t potentially play on a resuscitated Leafs roster have officially been released for the summer.

Everyone’s favourite call-up, Timothy Liljegren, also got a shout-out from Marlies GM Laurence Gilman.

Other Hockey News

The LA Kings have parted ways with their assistant GM, Mike Futa, for as-of-yet unknown reasons.

The NWHL’s Toronto expansion team now has a GM, former Buffalo Beauts FM Mandy Cronin.

And that’s about everything! Happy Tuesday everyone!

From The Branches