Weekly Takes - Monday, January 15th Edition

Weekly Takes - Monday, January 15th Edition

1. William Nylander will be worth the contract he signed with the Maple Leafs on Monday. That is not the issue.

The issue is, it is only the Leafs who have to sign all of their star players for what they are worth. Every other team has their stars sign for discounted prices, which makes it frustrating if you are a Leafs fan.

Regardless though, what was true before the contract extension remains true after it. The Core Four will forever be remembered, for better or worse, in Leafs history.

Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and Nylander can win a Cup and finish 1-2-3 in the franchise’s all-time scoring, forever going down as icons, with their statues outside the arena and their numbers hanging above the rafters inside of it.

Or they can be remembered as the biggest group of failures in the 100+ year history of the franchise. 

What a ride the next half-decade will be.

2. As for Marner, he is going to get what he wants, because 1) he has all the leverage and 2) This is what the Leafs do under Brendan Shanahan.

The difference from the Nylander contract is going to have to be that it gets done in the summer. The Marner camp, led by his Dad, will cause an unprecedented media circus otherwise.

No one will be able to handle it.

3. My three stars from the Leafs blowout win over the Sharks on Tuesday…

1. Marner

2. Morgan Rielly 

3. Matthews

Maybe, at long last, the Leafs have solved the “how to beat bad teams on a regular occurrence” problem that they have had the last few seasons.

The only thing that has plagued them in the regular season in the Matthews era.

4. My three stars from the Leafs overtime loss to the Islanders on Thursday…

1. Matthews

2. Pontus Holmberg 

3. Matthew Knies

Holmberg is worthy of a longer look on this roster. He sure looks like an NHLer to me.

Otherwise, there is not too much to write home about in this one. It had been a while since the Leafs faced a quality team, so getting a point in their first game “back” against an actual NHL team is not the end of the world.

Starting Jake McCabe over Morgan Rielly in overtime has to stop, though.

5. My three stars from the Leafs collapse against the Avs on Saturday…

1. Holmberg

2. Max Domi

3. Nylander 

The worst officiated game against the Leafs all season + nowhere near enough players played well + the Avs top players are as good as any unit in the league.

That’ll lead to a loss every time.

6. My three stars from the Leafs worst loss of the season on Sunday against the Red Wings…

1. Holmberg

2. Marner

3. Calle Jarnkrok 

Given what the Red Wings were dealing with, this was a game the Leafs had to win. They played well defensively but were just so flat offensively.

They will get embarrassed if they look this flat in Western Canada.

7. Jordan Hicks having a market as a starting pitcher simply made a reunion with the Blue Jays impossible.

The Jays are not in a situation where they could have provided him a starting opportunity, and even if they were, it would have been the wrong decision. Hicks does not have the control to be a starter.

It is now or never for Nate Pearson.

8. Darko Rajakovic’s tenure as the Raptors head coach had gotten off to a shaky start, with the team underperforming, his rotations being bizarre at times, etc, but he has had some positives too. 

He came here as a developmental coach and Scottie Barnes has emerged as a star under him. He came here to improve the Raptors half-court offence and he has done so.

But there has been no bigger positive than his postgame rant on Tuesday after Ben Taylor handed the Lakers a win against the Raptors, in the grossest fashion possible. 

He officially became the team’s head coach on Tuesday – someone the entire franchise can rally around. 

9.  Mike Vrabel had the Titans punching above their weight season-in, season-out for a half-decade, and the second the roster became awful they fired him.

It can take the Titans years to find a coach as good as Vrabel again, while he will land on his feet this offseason.

10. The only way the Seahawks firing of Pete Carroll will make sense is if they replace him with an offensive guru.

Otherwise, why do it? The culture was not broken, his voice was not lost, and the team was still competitive. 

Dan Quinn cannot be the hire, more so after his coaching performance for the Cowboys on Sunday.

11. In their most impressive season in decades, the Browns flamed out of the playoffs and now have to deal with the return of Deshaun Watson.

It is over for this era of Browns football. Joe Flacco is many negative things, but he did what Watson is incapable of doing in 2024: He made those around him better.

It is back to .500 football in Cleveland next season.

12. The Dolphins will be hard-pressed to find a quarterback better than Tua, so, their best bet, even with his lack of wins against elite teams + his injury history, will be to re-sign him and hope that, at worst, he can be a systems quarterback on a Super Bowl team.

There is no Matt Stafford to put them over the top the way he was able to do so for the Rams in 2021.

13. The Cowboys, one year too late, will certainly fire Mike McCarthy after the most embarrassing postseason loss in recent memory.

But the Cowboys also have to be asking themselves the same thing the Dolphins are about Tua: Can they win a Super Bowl with Dak Prescott as their quarterback?

The answer has to be no, based on what we have seen from him in his playoff career.