Sometimes forgotten in the scads of stories and books about the 1967 Leafs Cup win is that the city had another hockey champion that year.

The Toronto Marlboro juniors were Memorial Cup titlists that year, a long season that took them through the OHA playoffs, including a difficult series against the Kitchener Rangers, a raucous best-of-five win in Quebec against small-town Thetford Mines and a five-game victory over the Abbott Cup champion Port Arthur Marrs (from part of what’s now Thunder Bay). It remains the only time the Stanley Cup and Memorial Cup resided in the same building. The Marlies win came a few days after Toronto beat Montreal for NHL honours on May 2 of that year.

The Marlies, coached by ex-Leaf Gus Bodnar, managed by future Leafs GM Jim Gregory and led by eventual Leafs Gerry Meehan, Brian Glennie and Mike Pelyk, are being feted throughout this weekend. They’re holding a reunion at the home of ‘Ultimate Leafs Fan’ Mike Wilson, then honoured at both Saturday’s Toronto — Pittsburgh game and Sunday at Ricoh Coliseum where their AHL namesakes are playing Rochester. At both rinks they’ll be displaying the Memorial Cup.

FACE WASH

The Leafs won’t soon forget the lessons learned Tuesday when the rested Washington Capitals walked all over them — considering the teams could meet again next week in a playoff situation.

“We really needed to push back hard,” said Mitch Marner, who had the only goal in the 4-1 loss. “It took a little bit of time for us to get our legs under us. We just have to learn from these moments.

“They got on our defence hard. We needed to lay off a little bit and kind of get skating into the neutral zone. It was a reminder, whether we played the night before or not, just come in ready. At the start, we have to get (bodies) on them to kind of lay off our defence and give them time to make plays. Later in the game, we kind of got that down, but we have to do that from the get-go.

“We never feel like a game is out of reach. That’s what’s going to make us a deadly team, how hard we compete no matter the score or the time.”

TIP OF THE CAP

Defenceman Connor Carrick, who was brought up in in the Caps’ system with three games for their big team before his trade to Toronto, credits their organization for building a solid contender. But he does notice some immediate similarities with the Leafs.

“I remember I got a lot of questions right when I was traded, about parallels and differences between our teams. There are more parallels than differences. Systematically and habit wise, all the buzz words we use here are over there, too. (Barry) Trotz, (Mike) Babcock, Hockey Canada ... they all trade off each other.”

POINTS PILE UP

Heading into Thursday’s game, the Leafs rookie point total for this season sits at 295, leaving them three games to get closer to the top three post-expansion clubs in that department.

That list is topped by the 1967-68 Los Angeles Kings, an expansion team filled with almost all rookies, who put 344 on the board according to Elias Sports. Then come the 1992-93 Winnipeg Jets — powered by Teemu Selanne’s 76 goals — who had 330 points, while the ‘81-82 Jets had 323.