“Things are looking grim here, men.” Mike Babcock states the facts bluntly. “He is on one hell of a roll and I don’t think he’ll be slowing down any time soon. Now I’m working on how to get us out of here but you’ve got to give me some time.”

“Don’t worry coach.” Tyler Bozak stands for the Toronto Maple Leafs. “We can take it.”

The Leafs all nod their assent. The whole team is huddled around their coach in the men’s room. The informal setting is a sad necessity forced on the Leafs by the ravings of a mad man.

Lou Lamoriello is not that mad man, he is just super pissed off and has been venting his anger about the Trump situation in front of the whole team for the last three hours.

“Get out here!” Lou shouts from outside the door. “I need to discuss something very important.” That’s how Lou tricked all the Leafs to come to the bar in Toronto Maple Leaf Tower in the first place. “Come out now or I’m coming in there!”

“No need for that Lou.” Mike says as he leads the way out of the restroom.

The preseason roster for the Toronto Maple Leafs is a unit of over forty men, each of whom tower over the diminutive old man who dominates the room. He holds them with his glittering eye and they cannot choose but to hear. They listen all like three year old’s, Lamoriello has their will.

“I wanna talk about kneeling.” Lou spits. “I am so pissed I gotta have this talk with you, not even a real issue, but if that moron D-list celebrity of a President  is going to make kneeling an issue then I gotta talk about it. So here is our official Toronto Maple Leaf policy on kneeling during anthems. Players are only allowed to kneel during the playing of their own countries anthem, but only when they are not in that country. Simple right, so American guys can kneel in Canada and Canadians can kneel in the States. But then you get back up for the host countries anthem. And all of you guys who kneel have to be in my protest Vine.”

“What about Europeans?” Roman Polak asks.

“What are they protesting?” Lou asks, but speaks over any chance Roman has to answer. “Forget it, I don’t care. All players are subject to the rules. You can kneel any time you like when you hear your countries national anthem, so when’s that going to be? The Olympics maybe. Good luck with that, buddy. Europeans? Like I give two grains of cow shit about Europe. Honestly, I don’t even understand why everyone is angry about kneeling anyway. I got a hummer through every national anthem for every game from ’91 to ’13. Sometimes it was even a rimmer, right up in the box! It was great, talk about showing love for your country. Such a stupid controversy, and all to distract us from the real issue.”

“Ixnay on the Ussiansray.” Mike hisses.

“Russia?” Lou looks at the coach perplexed. “No, I’m talking about Dracula. We should be focusing on making our way through his castle so we can finally slay him, but instead we have to worry about what we do during a song. A song! Liquor!”

A trio of servers scurry out from hiding to kneel in front of Lou holding out a glass; a bottle filled with brown liquor; and ice in a bucket. Lou takes the bottle and waves the servants away.

“We are all concerned about Dracula sir.” Auston Matthews says. “Don’t worry we won’t let any distractions get in the way.”

Lou has to shake himself to keep from getting lost in Auston’s dreamy eyes, still the Leafs GM is instantly soothed by the young mans easy sincerity.

“Speaking of distractions.” Mike pounces on the opening. “Lou I need to get the team back on the ice right away here. These guys need every opportunity  to show me what they can do before cut day.”

“God, pick the team already.” Lou whines.

“How about I coach the team Lou.” Mike asks.

“How about I fire you right now.” Lou retorts.

“Go ahead Lou.” Mike pulls out his phone. “I’ll call Brendan, you can tell him I’m fired right now.” Toronto Maple Leafs President Brendan Shanahan has forbidden Lou from firing anybody in the organization and Mike knows it.

“Maybe I don’t want to fire you.” Lou backs down, mumbling under his breath. “Not yet, but I will, won’t I? Oh yes, you’ll be fired.” Lou takes a swig from his bottle and plants himself in a very soft chair.

“Let’s go Leafs.” Mike says and the team falls in behind their coach. They don’t get very far before alarms start going off throughout the tower.

“It’s Dracula.” Morgan Rielly says. His techno-pathic super senses allow Morgan to access the Toronto Maple Leaf network servers at will. “We are getting reports of vampire attacks all over the city.”

“Alright team, just like we practiced.” Mike says.

The next few minutes are an essay in organized chaos as the Leafs split off into groups of four and line up for their turn to be sent into combat. Morgan uses his power to pinpoint the attacks and Nazem Kadri uses his shadow walking ability to instantly transport his teammates through the shadow realm. Eventually all the groups but one have gone. Mike stands with Nazem, Zach Hyman, and Auston Matthews, as they wait for Morgan to tell them where they’re needed.

“Something’s wrong.” Morgan says.

“What?” Mike asks.

“All the attacks are far from the tower, but…” Morgan pauses for almost a minute which may not seem like very long but if you’ve ever been waiting for someone to make a point than you will almost certainly agree that a minute can seem interminable.

“But?” Nazem eventually says.

“But tower security logged a perimeter breach right before the first attack.”

“They are trying to distract us.” Auston says.

“What floor was the breach on?” Mike asks.

“This one.” Morgan answers.

“They’re after Lou.” Auston says, everyone knows he is right.

“Come on!” Nazem pulls open a shadow door and the Leafs step through it, back into the bar.

The vampire is already there. Only one, not Dracula. A beautiful woman, she is holding Lou in an iron grip, pulling on his head to expose his neck. She smiles when she sees the Leafs.

“Ah yes, witnesses, so much sweeter.” Her voice is a whisper yet easy to hear. “My master is eager for you all to resume your attempts on his Castlevania. He hopes to prompt you.” She bares her fangs and plunges them into Lou’s neck before the Leafs can react.

“No!” Auston yells. But his words are not enough to turn back the cruel hands of time which seems to have run out for the legendary hockey man. Lou convulses as he is drained. The vampire throws his corpse to the floor, her smile never fading.

“Who’s next?” She takes a step forward, then pauses. She burps and her smile turns to confusion. Her confusion turns to agony as the shocked Leafs watch the vampire melt into a steaming puddle in less time than it takes to fart.

The puddle bubbles on the floor and slowly seeps over to Lou. His corpse begins to chuckle as the liquid is absorbed back into it. Slowly, shakily, Lou stands back up. He seems shinier, more himself than he had been just moments before, as if he were the one who had just fed.

“It’s always so cute,” Lou says. “The way they think I have human blood in me.” He picks up his bottle of liquor and drains it in one swig.