This week is probably the best time to distract people from the present by getting nostalgic about the past. The second The Leaf: Blueprint dropped unexpectedly, an 11-minute offering that focuses upon the Leafs’ home opener. Before I briefly discuss the episode, we’ve had a few questions cleared up about the production:

As I have direct contact with members of the Blueprint production team I wanted to field some questions.

-Blueprint’s production team is exactly the same as last season including producer(s), director, editor and cinematographer.

-Blueprint will air exclusively on mapleleafs.com. (no longer broadcast on TSN)

-Episodes will run at a shorter runtime between 10-12 mins an episode.

-Expect more frequent content.

Posted by Don_Peters

This is interesting news, and I surmise that the shift in how the episodes are thematically structured has more to do with making them shorter than anything else.  Well, okay then.

Episode 2 swiftly raised the important theme of the year, the Leafs’ 100th (or 99th, as Seldo terms it) birthday. “It’s more than a responsibility” to properly celebrate, Brendan Shanahan said, “It’s an honor.” We’re given a chance to peek inside the room where the Maple Leafs alumni, along with David Keon, were given their spiffy new jackets and told that their numbers would be retired. Then the camera cut to the on-ice ceremony, and I admit that I totally teared up.

From age and history, the documentary hustled us quickly on over to to youth and hope. We’re shown footage of Mitch Marner, William Nylander, and Auston Matthews, and Marner conveyed the nerves of all the new kids when he said that playing the opening night of the 100th year “will be remembered for a long time.”

We all know the results of that awesome home opener, the Leafs’ first victory of the year over the Boston Bruins with a score of 4-1. Marner notched his first goal of the season during this game too. I hope the Leafs alumni also remember this game forever!

Somewhere in all of this was my favorite moment of life and vigor and joy: Marner and Nylander enjoying the competitive burn of practicing against each other in the morning skate.

But perhaps my most favorite moment came from the opening sequence, in which David Keon is watching sculptor Erik Blome create his likeness in clay, and then in metal. "Kind of a wild moment to walk in and see an image of you that is a bit bigger,” Keon said. “We made a couple of little adjustments and when we left we were happy."

One of the adjustments? To the amount of hair. Keon told Blome to give his statue a haircut, because it was “More hair than I remember [having].”

[Missed Episode 1? You can watch it here.]

Analysis