And they are a game, and they've played an extra game, but they're four points up on the Florida Panthers right now. Let's freaking go. I mean, this is a team that hasn't won a real division since the late '90s. I'm talking about, sorry, Canadian division. Made up.

They were all made up that year, but it matters for the Leaps. If they had won the Atlantic at any point over the last 10 years-It would matter more. Maybe you count the Canadian division because you're like, They've done it before. But because that's the only one, it's like, no, it doesn't count.

That's right. They are up. They are 12 points up on the fourth place, Lightning already. They are 12 points. The Lightning have played four less games, but it's still worth mentioning. Yeah, the Lightning have played 37. The Leaps have played 41 because of the December schedule was bonkers.

If the Lightning went out, the Leaps are still up four.

The Lefs are nine points up on the Boston Bruins, who, by the way, have played a game more than the Leaps had. Hey, let's go. And of course, the Florida Panthers, I mentioned 50 points in 40 games for them. They've played one last game, but the Leaps, points percentage-wise, are top in the division. And we'll talk about the senators and the Canadians a little bit later. But I think they're going to need their shoutouts to be sure. But I'm looking at this and I'm going, this is the best possible outcome you could have for this group, considering what they were staring down December first.

A hundred %. And with Matthew's out for the majority of it, too. I mean, And how do you... You know, it's funny. Remember when the Knucks were just running away with the NHL in 2011 and all that? Oh, yeah. And there was the Mason-Ramen Paradox. And the Mason-Ramen paradox was all Knox fans were complaining about Mason-Ramen because he was the perceived weakest link on an otherwise juggernaut of a hockey team. And For me, it feels like Morgan Reilly has become that for the least because I get asked about him after every game now. During every game, I'll get messages like, what is up with this guy? He stinks and blah, blah, blah, blah, gets the OT winner last night. Granted, still didn't have the greatest game, but I'm like, do you not see where they are right now? How am I the one going, Hey, I think you need to be more optimistic about the Toronto Mapleies? That's not usually my bag, baby. But they've won four straight. They've won four straight. I think we need to start feeling really good about this.

Jesse, what's your sense of the Morgan Reilly discourse from inside the organization, where I'm sure there is none? But there has been a huge online discourse, and really, I found, picked up mid-December and has exploded over the Christmas break here.

I'm not even saying they're wrong.

Well, yeah, and we could talk about the merits of it, but the reality is that seven and a half million dollar defenseman, you expect him more than a goal. Do you have any sense of how the Leifs feel about it?

I think Morgan Reilly knows he didn't have a good first half because he said it. He talked to Jonas Siegel at practice about how he was disappointed in his first half and how the second half he needs to improve, and there are little parts of his game that he needs to get better. There's a stretch here coming up where the Leifs have a bunch of time off because of the Four Nations, and every team does. It's a long season. We forget that. Him having a couple, okay, two months-ish of hockey Hockey that we're not too impressed with is okay because the Leifs have been continuing to win, like we pointed out. There's a whole stretch here where he can get right. Last night, hopefully, is the start of something, getting that OT winner. I'm not concerned about Morgan Reilly.

I have a couple of things on this point, guys. The first one is, what season did Morgan Reilly play his best hockey? And I'm talking about playoffs or regular season. When have you seen Morgan Reilly play his best?

Well, there It was the season he had 20 goals and 72 points. That was absurd. But I mean, the 23 playoffs against the Lightning and Panthers.

Which came on the heels of an injury plagged, not so good regular season. And with the steady Defender.

Yes.

We talk about in Toronto. Yeah, Luke Shin. We talk about in Toronto, we want these players to be better than they are in the regular season. Morgan Reilly is a guy that...

Sets the bar low.

No, I think he's a beast in the playoffs, so I'm less concerned about it. But the other thing I wanted to bring up, and I think unless you've had, I hate to put it this way, but a lot of people are going to roll their eyes about what I'm going to say.

I know exactly what you're going to say.

They have a child that is less than a year old at home. For me, having gone through that, and listen, I didn't give birth. I didn't have to breastfeed. I didn't have to do any of that stuff. But if I were a high-level athlete and I was not sleeping very well, I think it would affect my game. And I'm not saying that's what's happening, but you cannot underestimate two things. One, the habits of a professional athlete, they're anal about them. Two, the way a baby goes, Yeah, fuck all that.

Oh, absolutely.

Oh, you have a routine? That's nice. You had a life before me? That's nice. You don't anymore. Hey, you love me? Yeah.

It's literally on your face.

Now, is it possible? We talked about this 10 years ago with Evgeny Malkin struggling, and they were like, the penguins people were like, Wow, we made a new trade.

He's like, he did just have-Samsung off last year.

Oh, his wife just had a kid? Yeah. I wonder if that plays of this at all. It's possible. It's like when Tavares was bad at the beginning of the season. People have forgotten that now. He had a bad two weeks. Well, he lost eight pounds because he had the flu. Life happens.

I haven't put it as articulately as I'd like to in the LFR. I wanted to be like, what percentage of the people watching this video or this podcast today right now have had some horrible illness over the last two weeks?

Oh, a lot of people have.

I think it's high. Sorry. Some of you are like, I don't know, maybe you're in Arizona right now. I don't know. I feel fine. Sorry. Southwest Ontario. Or winter climate. Is a cesspit right now. Cesspit. Everyone's got something horrible. The guy I brought up yesterday for LFR was Willy, who was just mysteriously playing the worst hockey of the season. For me, I'm like, he plays through some haggard illness once a season.

I think with Willy, too, there's just a regression to the mean. That's possible. Adam's favorite term there, bringing back the 2025. He's still shooting his highest shooting percentage of his entire career. Still? And he's on a seven-game goal list trip. Wow. There is an inevitability here where he was just going to not score every game because it's impossible.

You know what I like about Willy, though? He's a hot starter. There are a lot of guys that areNot? Cold starters. Cold starters. Jerome McGinland was famous for cold starts and then would warm up midseason and get crazy. Willy is a guy that's like, hot start, a little bit of a thing, and then at the end of the season, he brings it back up.

Mitch Marner not scoring feels like a distant memory.

No kidding.

Yeah. He's unbelievable. Five-point game. And it was, I think, his fifth five-point game, which is just absurd. Out of the guys who's having a better season than last, he's probably number one out of guys having a much better season.

I've never had more fun watching Mitch Marner play hockey. Oh, 100 %. This is the best he's ever been.

Easily.

This last month has been the best. Well, actually, November as well, when Matthews went out, I thought we saw the best of what Mitch Marner and William Nylander could be. And when Matthews came back, it was pretty clear that he wasn't fully In retrospect, fully healthy. Because if you see his comeback in December and you see his comeback in January, his comeback in January is fully Austin Matthews. His comeback in December was not.

I was worried, and it's all gone. Evaporating Rated over 48 hours. He's looked fantastic. Completely fantastic. Yeah.

With Willy, too, he's still second in the league lead in goals. It's dry-sideal and then Willy tied with a bunch of guys. That's so crazy. Yeah, and I assume a lot of the guys over the holidays had a little bit of sickness.

I think, I don't know, it's lazy. It's literally lazy and based on nothing. But whenever a player gets bad out of nowhere, I'm like, okay, well, something must be going on there.

And you're not going to be good all 82.

That's true, too. It's true, too. But the standard for... Willy set a high bar for himself, right? He's an unreal player.

They've been asking a lot of them, too, over when Matthews was out. He's double shifting on power plays, which isn't easy a lot. His centers have never been the best. He's out there playing with whoever. He's been driving his line whenever he's out there. He loves leaving the zone early, and a couple of times he'll caught doing that. I know they've pointed it out on television a couple of times. Kiprios has been hard on him for that stuff, but that's also what makes Willy good.

Didn't yesterday, he tried to blow the zone. He tried to do a little pick-off play around the guy at the point, and then he dropped a stick.

Yeah, not great stuff sometimes, but that's what you get. You get the guy who's number two in goal scoring in the league.

Yeah, and they win. That's why I'm able to just laugh it off. It's funny because they won.

You laughed like JT.

Hey, Willy, you're supposed to have that in your hands.

What's that doing down there? It wouldn't be Leaps Nation if we weren't worried. The one piece of anxiety is last night, Jake McCabe and Garner Hathaway going head to head. Jake and nick Capabrio said it perfectly at intermission. If you're going to have him on the ground and drive his head into the ice, don't let him get up. There's six seconds to go in the period. Don't let him get up. Don't get into a fight. He does. And I think that what happened is the head injury that is suspected happened not when he hit the ice, but it was Garner Hathaway's knee that hit him. I wasn't sure. Is that the case? Is that the case? Yeah. So His head hit the ice pretty hard.

I think it was his head hitting the ice. He did get kicked on the way down. Yeah. And I don't think that was on purpose. I don't think it was on purpose, although- It is Garnet Hathaway. I said it in the LFR, now that we have a little bit more breathing room and there's two people around me, I I want to see your reaction. Garnet Hathaway is a grease ball with no integrity, and I hate him as a hockey player.

I hate him. He should have been a perfect Bruin. I can't believe that didn't work out.

I'm so fucking thrilled it didn't work out. A first, a second, and a third, and Craig Smith for a dude who got one assist in seven games. Looks good on you. Spitting Eric Good-Branson's face. Do I talk like this about many players around the NHL? No. No, I don't respect this hockey player. Who spits on a guy?

That's messy. Yeah.

Gross. What's wrong with you?

Obviously, yesterday, Jesse, after the game, I saw the quotes from you about Barube saying he was worried about things. We haven't got an update as of this recording. Did you get a sense of how things were? Was it serious sounding?

Yeah, because Mekabe missed five games earlier this season with a head injury. So obviously him hitting his head again is not fun. He's become really important to this team. Oh, my God. You don't want Mekabe missing any significant time, and they never give anything after the game. It's always upper body or he'll update you tomorrow. We never really get anything out of the least. We'll find out tomorrow at practice, but you just hope it's not too long term for the game. It looks like he'll definitely not play the next couple of games because I assume it's a concussion. We don't know. Why bother? It's January. You got to take a week off there or something.

Three games minimum, I think, is a good bet. I wouldn't expect to see him this week, and they play Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday..