The Leafs not playing on Saturday night is a travesty

Every so often, the unthinkable happens. The kind of event that makes you turn on the TV in disbelief, only to sigh and shake your head. The way things are right now, you can’t help but think of the direction of where things are going and wonder how it got this way.

The Toronto Maple Leafs do not play on Saturday night.

I mean, this feels borderline illegal. Not only are Leafs fans not treated with a game tonight because they played back-to-back games in Minnesota and Detroit, they also have THREE more Saturday nights off this year.

I mean, what do we do tonight? Spend time with our families? Come on. Watch the Oilers play the Wild? No. Jets at Blues? No. How about the NHL’s 100 Classic in the nation’s capital between the Habs and Sens? Watch both of those teams? Willingly? Get real.

The Leafs and Saturday nights go together. Don’t believe me? The Leafs made the Canucks play at 4PM their time to accommodate a Toronto crowd. What other tradition do you know of that consists of alcohol and getting angry because Jim Hughson doesn’t act like he’s in love with every move Auston Matthews makes?

Without a Leafs game, I won’t have the urge to physically fight a stranger because of internet debates over how the coach utilizes somebody that very closely resembles a caveman on the ice. I won’t be seeing doomsday scenarios that have to do with the end of life as we know it because the Leafs collapsed again. For one Saturday night, the timeline will be calm. I’m not used to this type of serenity.

Please NHL, don’t let this happen again next year. We need the Leafs on a Saturday night. Like anything else hockey related, those of us in the Greater Toronto Area don’t know how to act on Saturday nights.

But maybe this comes at a good time! The Leafs have lost three straight without their star, can’t score at even strength, getting what seems like unsustainable goaltending, and are seeing guys like Leo Komarov log almost 20 minutes a game for some reason.

If anybody needs a break from the constant over-analyzing and bickering about their own team (and probably each other), it’s Leafs fans. While things may seem bleak right now, the teams chasing Toronto are the Bruins, Canadiens, and Red Wings. LOL. They’ll be just fine.

Go Leafs go