I was asked to do the mailbag this week so here it is.

More limited than Frederik Gauthier’s offensive ceiling.

I ask myself: what’s stupid about hockey, hockey twitter, and the hockey media? And then I write those exact tweets and articles.

He seems pretty decent. Once upon a time he was pretty good actually. I assume this question is moreso “why hasn’t anyone signed Tobias Enstrom?” And if you are using the intelligence of these 30 GMs (Dubas not included) as a measurement for if a player is good or not, buddy let me shock you with this: the Boston Bruins signed John Moore to a five year deal. FIVE YEAR DEAL. They should have John Less’d.

60 feels like an ok number to me. As much as the Leafs got clowned by Boston in the playoffs, Andersen was absolutely horrendous in at least three of those games. Part of it was Andersen’s hot/cold inconsistency, but also he looked…tired. You know the Leafs are making the playoffs every year now, so let Sparks have at least 20-25 games and keep Andersen fresh for the postseason.

Probably McDavid just because of how balanced this Leafs forward group is. Counterargument: Matthews because now one of the Leafs two top lines will get favourable matchups every game and will get to absolutely feast.

Finally, a good and important question.

Let’s get this out of the way: a lot of people are going to say Metric, Broken Social Scene, Arcade Fire, and Death From Above 1979. And I get why.

HOWEVER: Metric undoubtedly made the best songs out of the bunch but when you look back, their existence wasn’t particularly exciting; BSS was cool but inconsistent; Arcade Fire is the most successful of the bunch, but they’re not good; and DFA1979 was very awesome but have sullied their name ever since they got back together.

Now let’s get to the actual answer.

If we count 2005 as “early 2000s”, Protest the Hero is the best Canadian band from that era. That’s the year they released Kezia, a huge step in their sound from their first EP, and still a highly influential record for the technical hardcore scene. We’ve never heard anything else quite like it, and I doubt we will again.

I wish they had a better drummer though – Moe Carlson is decent, but he’s rather conventional – and it shows when he’s trying to keep up with the spastic riffs Luke Hoskin and Tim Millar are able to throw out one after the other.

I’ll also accept Alexisonfire as an answer to this question, but I do find that people appreciate the wrong album – Watch Out! is far and away their best record.

All this to say, the most iconic visual from early-2000s Canadian rock music is the pool platform guitar solo by the dude in Sum 41.