DEFENSIVE PAIRINGS		Defense
CARL GUNNARSSON Rating: 72.8#72 LD	ALEX PIETRANGELO Rating: 78.7#3 RD	DL1 Rating Rating: 75.73#10 DL1
JAY BOUWMEESTER Rating: 73.4#56 LD	COLTON PARAYKO Rating: 77.1#15 RD	DL2 Rating Rating: 75.27#3 DL2
VINCE DUNN Rating: 76.3#11 LD	JUSTIN FAULK Rating: 77.3#12 RD	DL3 Rating Rating: 76.81#1 DL3

Yep. That’s $6.5M defenseman Justin Faulk on the third pairing. *Looks at those pairings again* Oh crap, they have really good defense and it’s probably the last thing I should make fun of.

Now for the five things…

1. Thank freakin’ God that Andersen is back in net

I really wanted to believe in Hutchinson, and I know I’m also very prone to writing off backup goaltenders quickly, but I did not enjoy watching Hutchinson on Saturday night and would be quite happy to never see him in the Leafs net again. This is not the line I wanted to be writing after being strongly in favour of managing Andersen’s workload this year, but here we are.

Andersen’s in tough having to face the Stanley Cup champions, and hasn’t exactly set the world on fire in the past two starts, but that doesn’t change the fact that he will get it under control and teach us all how to love again. As for Hutchinson, well, he’ll serve a constant reminder of how badly I wanted the Leafs to claim Oscar Dansk.

2. No free passes for the defense on under-performing so far either.

I know none of you want to here about how bad Cody Ceci is yet. I know that many of you seem to be fine with what you’ve seen so far. I know you all have your preferred defenseman to throw under the bus, and Ceci is just mine, but rather than name individuals beyond what I have already done, we have to acknowledge that collectively the Leafs haven’t been great in their own zone. We can also acknowledge that this isn’t new because that’s been the story for what seems like at least a decade, and we can hold out home that having a new defensive coach, and three new defensemen on the blueline this year means we’re waiting out them all adjusting to the new way of doing things.

3. One last negative one… Kasperi Kapanen

If there is one Leafs forward who has been truly underwhelming so far this year it’s Kapanen. He’s an easy target after his idiotic stick throwing incident, but generally he’s been blowing his golden opportunity of playing with Tavares and Marner, and frankly seems to be dragging two players who normally have a reputation for elevating their linemates. Given how well Trevor Moore has been playing, I wonder if switching Moore and Kapanen makes sense at this point, though frankly I’m not sure I’d want to mess with everything that is going right with Mikheyev-Kerfoot-Moore.

4. Let’s keep on singing the praise of Trevor Moore

I do this not because our site manager has an unhealthy love of Trevor Moore, but because we all should love Trevor Moore. Trevor Moore is largely what people wanted to believe that Connor Brown was, or maybe what Connor Brown was in his first season. Moore is a player you notice every shift he’s on the ice and puts in the amount of effort that makes him impossible to hate. The fact that he’s been getting results so far only makes him more lovable, and when Hyman returns later this month he’ll be a hard one to demote back to the fourth line, although having Trevor Moore on your 4th line is probably a good sign this team is oozing with depth-y goodness.

5. Auston Matthews’ one timer

The work he did on developing this shot was time well spent. Hoooooooooooooooooo Doggy! He’s going to score a million goals this year.

Puck drop is at 7:00 PM ET and the game can be seen on TSN 4 in Ontario.