Good Morning! There was actually a trade yesterday:

But why didn’t Dubas get him, OMG, I didn’t even want him, but Dubas is so dumb, and...

Huh. Well that’s never happened before.

Joking aside — Taylor Hall wasn’t interested either — this will happen a lot more. It is what it is. A large number of US-based players think Canada has too many rules, not enough freedom, and they just don’t want to come here. Even if that thought isn’t really formed, Gary Bettman saying, “Canada!” in this tone of utter irritation doesn’t help.

Some of the issues are real — changing countries with school age kids is tough. But I delved a little deeper than anecdotes on US-born free agents signing in Canada and it is really uncommon. The level of fame in a Canadian city is much higher. No one would ever know who Pierre Engvall is on the street in most NHL cities, for example.

You can moan about this or see it as an opportunity to cull out the players who aren’t really “all or nothing” about winning.

It starts with a whinge about how Leafs fans just aren’t monolith in their opinions enough, which always makes me laugh, but I think the conclusion is obvious and the choice of header pic is apt.

Why the Maple Leafs' most pressing deadline need is a defence upgrade

Yesterday seemed to be one of those days where I got to see how many people are obsessed with the Toronto Maple Leafs. The carrying on over the Matthews suspension as every fan who hates the Leafs, showed how little the Leafs mean to them by tripping over their, uh, laces, to post about it.

This guy, though, this is hilarious:

I don’t think TSN employs* two people more different in their outlook than Pierre LeBrun and Travis Yost. So aside from the wholly irrational desire to anthropomorphize a media outlet and demand they have a house opinion on every topic for ~consistency — unless you’re complaining about groupthink — this is all very, very silly.  But he followed the correct form of screenshotting two things and juxtaposing them, so it must be true, right?

* Yost isn’t even an employee, he’s freelance.

The chaser on that shot is that a man who calls himself a sportswriter RTd that. He hates the Leafs at the moment, so anything kind of anti-Toronto, he’s up for.

I got nothing on this one. Maybe it’s just giving Dahlström a day’s NHL pay, and is about to be reversed, but it’s also possible the Leafs want a centre on the roster for a couple of games, and the forward they recall today will not be Robertson.

That’s a good article, but if GMs are really doing that, they’ve sold themselves a bill of goods on the “strength” of the drafts.

Okay, let me see if I’ve got them all here, aside from that news:

  • Miro Heiskanen has mono, so the chances of the Stars trading Klingberg are now basically zero
  • Jakob Chychrun is out 2-4 weeks with an undisclosed LBI
  • The rest of the Ducks UFAs really are for sale
  • Vancouver may be swinging back around to trying to move Jaro Halak but he has a full NMC
  • Vancouver seems unlikely to be moving JT Miller
  • The Sharks keep saying they want to keep Hertl and keep not signing him
  • Ottawa now doesn’t want to trade expiring UFA Anton Forsberg, which is an interesting choice/

That’s all for now. We have six days to the deadline and there’s lots of time for teams to change their minds on who they want to move out. Anything can happen, but not much likely will.

Happy Tuesday, everyone.

Oh, wait... there’s a game today, who is that again... Oh, Dallas. Well they better recall Robertson, come on, guys.

From The Branches