I know what you’re thinking: “Let’s stop talking about the Blue Jays’ playoff run and focus on the Leafs getting their pictures taken.”

Well, I’ve got you covered!

Monday was the Toronto Maple Leafs‘ media day.

Last year’s was eventful. The Leafs traded five players — some after getting their picture taken and doing interviews about how happy they were to be with the Leafs — to the Islanders in exchange for Michael Grabner.

There wasn’t a trade today. Instead, there were four (unsurprising) cuts.

So, what even happens on media day?

Whenever you see a player appear on the big screen at a game, or any time you see a player strike a pose or say where they’re from in a Sportsnet video feature, chances are it came from media day. A great deal of work went into it, too. The lighting setups are usually large, with more than one camera set up to capture footage, a boom mic operator getting the shoulder workout of a lifetime, and a director on location to manage it all. Sportsnet’s crew was nice enough to let me hang around on set to view the process.

In what was a bit of a surreal moment, I saw Mitch Marner participating in a video session while Auston Matthews and William Nylander waited for their turn.

Even after talking about that trio being the backbone of the Leafs’ future all summer long, it was still a pretty cool sight to see them all together at once wearing blue and white.

A goalie skated onto the set and I didn’t recognize him right away — I had never seen his pads or mask before. That’s when I realized it was Frederik Andersen. Because of his pre-World Cup injury, this is the first opportunity we’ve had to see Andersen wear a Leafs sweater.

Each player who came through the media space posed in a variety of stances, with some even catering to a player’s specialties. (Tyler Bozak did several face-off poses, for example.)

While Matthews was his usual stoic self, Morgan Rielly called to him from the stands in the background:

“Auston, look up here! Auston!”

Once Matthews turned around, Rielly simply replied with, “Hi,” like he was Stewie Griffin.

Rielly needed a little extra concentration for his video session.

His line was simply, “I’m Morgan Rielly from Vancouver, British Columbia.”

The only problem was Rielly is missing one of his front teeth — he lost it recently at the World Cup of Hockey during Team North America’s battle against Sweden.

Speaking of Rielly, he’ll make an appearance in my upcoming video about media day. Here’s a sneak preview:

Before leaving for the day, the Sportsnet folks were kind enough to let me screw around on set and do some of my own Anchorman-type poses for the camera.

As you can see, I was totally professional about the whole thing.

While I was goofing around, I heard a voice yell “Steve Dangle!”

Much to my surprise, the voice belonged to Brendan Shanahan.

I asked if he wanted to join me on camera. He kept walking. I don’t blame him.

Sportsnet’s creative director Marcus Di Pede was in charge of instructing all the players and production crew on what to do next. I can only assume I was his most troublesome subject of the day. He will also be in my video once it comes out with a much more in-depth explanation of what he does on Leafs media day.

With all the hype surrounding optimism and the next phase of the Leafs’ rebuild, this year’s media day was, surprisingly, a bit scaled back. While they would usually use two of the MasterCard Centre’s four ice pads for photoshoots and capturing video, this year they restricted it to just one.

The Leafs’ practice ice, which was used for media purposes last year, was instead used for – wait for it – practice. Mike Babcock isn’t messing around.

Look for the results of the work on Leafs media day during Leafs games on Sportsnet this season. And if you’re lucky enough to go to a game, you’ll see it on the big screen as well!