When humanity is threatened only the super powered might of the Toronto Maple Leafs can be counted on to save the day. The Leafs have undergone a major overhaul this year. Of all the changes, none has been more impactful than the addition of a squadron based tactical deployment that head coach Mike Babcock and GM Kyle Dubas designed to keep the peace on the mean Toronto streets. Today we follow Otter squad: centers.

John Tavares looks out across a field of devastation which is mostly his doing. A horde of skeletons had been raised at Oakwood High School. Luckily it was 2am so no students were in danger, but the skeletons were certainly not brought back to plant gardens. They were armed and dangerous with a hatred for everything living. The Toronto Maple Leafs had detected the summoning ritual and John had arrived just moments after the skeletons and gone to work. Even with his super strength and super speed, his iron tipped quarterstaff  and his super chill powers, two thousand skeletons would have been a chore, so John brought company. Taylor Hall of the New Jersey Devils is visiting and jumped at the chance for some action.

Taylor helped as best he could and now in the aftermath he leans heavily on his sword, bleeding from several superficial cuts. Panting and slouched, Taylor makes a sharp contrast to John who stands as proud and stoic as ever, unhurt and seemingly ready to kill two thousand more skeletons.

“That was.” Taylor says between laboured breaths. “Intense.”

“Yeah” John says. He could in fact kill many more than two thousand more skeletons.

“Is it always like this here?” Taylor asks.

“Not alway” John says after a pause to ponder. “Just most of the time.”

“We get action in Jersey, but like, I’ll see maybe two hundred skeletons. Not two thousand. Do you know where they’re from?”

“Not yet we don’t.” John says. “ They’ve attacked before. I expect we will see them again but no, we don’t know where they are coming from yet.”

“Well they are mean wherever they’re from. You want to go grab some beers?”

A thin rasping voice interjects before John can answer. “Beers would be great.”

Gary Bettman steps out of the shadows. Objectively odious, Gary wears his smarmiest smile as he approaches the heroes. He holds his arms out wide as if to force them into an awkward hug but he is too short for to make it work so he settles on patting them both on the arm. The heroes shudder but neither moves away. Gary is important enough to command respect and petty enough to remember every slight.

“What are you doing here Gary?” John asks.

“I’m here saving the day like you.” Gary says, his eyes twinkle with glee at his obvious lie.

“Sure you were.” John says, rolling his inner eye. “I think I saw you fighting one.”

“Yeah, I think I did too.” Taylor agrees, not catching on to the joke.

“You did?” Gary asks, confused by the apparent acceptance of his claims. “I mean,yeah you did. I was pretty tired after the summoning ritual but…”

“What?” John interrupts. “You summoned them? Why? Oh, I could kill you Gary. What the hell!”
“Calm down, calm down.” Gary says, backing away from John. “I was given a scroll by some cool old guy and he told me to read it and watch what happened. I didn’t know that skeletons would appear, he just said it would be really exciting. It was pretty exciting too, at least it looked exciting from where I was hiding, I mean helping.”

“What was this old mans name?” John asks. “What did he look like? Where did he go?”

“I don’t know.” Gary whines. “He just gave me the scroll and left. Now that I think about it, he might have been a woman.”

“Well great.” John shakes his head in disbelief. “Thanks for making all our lives a little harder and also for having nothing legitimately helpful to contribute. You are the worst Gary. Just the worst.” John walks away, leaving Taylor and Gary behind.

“So where should we go for beers?” Gary asks Taylor.