Weekly Takes - Monday, July 31st Edition

Weekly Takes - Monday, July 31st Edition

1. The Leafs being able to stick Matt Murray on LTIR instead of buying him out or trading assets to move him is a massive win and the best possible ending for a situation that never should have occurred in the first place.

Sometimes as a general manager, you have to swing for the fences, but the risk was always way higher than the reward when Kyle Dubas went and traded for Murray.

2. Patrice Bergeron retires not only as one of the greatest defensive centres in NHL history, but the best, present-day defensive centre in the league.

Pundits have been predicting their downfall for a while now, but surely this is what breaks the Camels’ back when it comes to the Bruins run of success.

They are very thin down the middle and at left wing. And can we truly expect their goaltending to be as good as it was last season?

3. Between Jordan Romano, Jordan Hicks, Erik Swanson, Tim Mayza, Yimi Garica, Trevor Richards, and the soon-to-be-healthy Chad Green, the Blue Jays have the deepest, most diverse bullpen in all of baseball.

Never mind Nate Pearson, Jay Jackson, and Genesis Cabera, all of whom will likely be given the short end of the stick simply because they still have minor-league options left.

A World Series calibre bullpen, with flamethrowers in Romano and Swanson, cheeky pitchers in Swanson and Richards, and a lights-out lefty in Mayza.

4. I love the Texas Rangers going all-in on a championship.

They are getting career seasons from multiple players in a league where there is no clear favourite.

It would have been inexcusable for them not to go all-in, given how much money they have spent in free agency the last two seasons.