Maple Leafs Celebrate St. Patrick's Day Early With New Sweaters

I love St. Patrick's Day. It's a day when we celebrate the Emerald Isle with green beer, corned beef, green beer, leprechauns, and more green beer.

But North of the border — in that kooky, backward land known as Canada — they've got another way to celebrate the occasion: the Toronto Maple Leafs' St. Pats jerseys.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have been busting out special throwback get-ups on or around St. Patrick's Day for years. The reason is fairly obvious: sure, they're tipping their caps to the Irish, but the real nod is to the Leafs' team history.

After opening play as the Toronto Arenas in 1917, the franchise changed its name to the Toronto St. Patricks in 1919 and kept that name until 1927 when they became, of course, the Toronto Maple Leafs.

That's a pretty significant portion of the team's history, and what better way to pay tribute to the St. Pats than by cosplaying as them on St. Patrick's Day?

And this year, the Maple Leafs debuted some new St. Pats jerseys and they're absolutely fantastic.

Look:

As far as getups go, those are top-notch… it is a missed opportunity not using brown pants and gloves, but, nonetheless, still fantastic.

So how did these puppies work out for the  ̶L̶e̶a̶f̶s̶ St. Pats on Saturday night against the Carolina Hurricanes?

…Not well.

Toronto was up 4-2 late, so it looked like a nice two points were in the cards for the Leafs. They're kind of on an island in the standings where they're nine points behind the Panthers for second in the Atlantic Division and seven points ahead of the Lightning in the first wild card spot.

Still, two points is two points, but if they want the best possible playoff matchup in the first round they can't blow leads late… which is what they did on Saturday night.

The Canes scored two goals late in the third to force overtime, and after a scoreless extra frame, newly acquired Hurricane Jake Guentzel potted the only goal in the shootout to hand Carolina a win.

It was a beauty, by the way.

Not a fun end to the night for the Leafs, but at least they had some sweet jerseys for it.