from Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet,

- I’m not around the youth hockey world as much as Jeff Marek, who’s steeped in it thanks to his talented children. But it is very possible that seismic change is coming to the biggest minor hockey association in Canada — the Greater Toronto Hockey League.

The most prestigious organization in that league is the Toronto Marlboros. NHL alumni include Connor McDavid, the Hughes brothers, Jason Spezza, Sam Gagner and John Tavares. Gagner and Tavares left the Marlboros a long time ago, but it’s clear the Marlboros never left them.

They are in the process of “buying” or “taking control of the board.”...

- Mentioned last week that no one should be surprised to see practice time/morning skates cut down in an effort to limit close contact. It’s going to happen for teams needing to make up games. Ruff: “If a player has played 20 minutes the night before, he might not practice or have a meaningful practice for weeks.”

Krueger: “If it means staying off the ice between game days, if it means avoiding the ice completely other than games for certain stretches, that could happen.”

- I don’t believe Marc-Andre Fleury is available. He’s on fire, rejuvenated. In a year where some teams can’t make it work even with four goalies, why would you move him?

Sometimes, we mistake friendliness for weakness. There’s nothing Fleury wouldn’t do to prove he’s still a No. 1 and he’s showing that now. Someday, however, I’m going to pump several GMs full of truth serum to figure out the truth behind the wild four-team rumours from the off-season.

- The average save percentage is .906. That would be the worst since a .905 figure in 2006-07. Twenty-nine goalies have played at least eight games. Twelve are at least 10 points above the average (Fleury .944, Philipp Grubauer .937, Andrei Vasilevskiy .933 lead the way). Two (Pekka Rinne and Tuukka Rask) are right there, and 15 are anywhere from five to 46 below. Two in particular, Edmonton’s Mikko Koskinen and Washington’s Vitek Vanecek, give it their all and battled extremely hard when their teams lacked depth, but looked worn out by the workload.

more on the first topic plus other hockey Thoughts...