Weekly Takes - Monday, March 14 Edition

Weekly Takes - Monday, March 14 Edition

1. My three stars from the Maple Leafs win over the Blue Jackets on Monday…

1. Auston Matthews

2. Mitch Marner

3. Michael Bunting

The Pierre Engvall-David Kampf-Ilya Mikheyev line was every bit as good as the first line was.

But another poor performance in net and their worst defensive game since their loss to the Habs in February.

2. My three stars from the Maple Leafs win over the Kraken on Tuesday…

1. Matthews

2. Marner

3. TJ Brodie

Two things continue to remain true: The Leafs need a starting goalie and Matthews is the best player in the world, playing the best hockey by a Maple Leaf since Doug Gilmour in ‘93.

We are witnessing greatness at the highest possible level in #34 right now.

3. My three stars from the Maple Leafs overtime loss to the Coyotes on Thursday…

1. Alex Kerfoot

2. Bunting

3. Brodie

Another pathetic performance in net and another electric performance offensively. Same old.

The bigger story is the officiating.

The non-call against Matthews in overtime is a disgrace to the sport. It was pathetic… inexcusable.

All this talk about gambling this, betting that, but who on earth is going to bet their hard-earned money on this crummy league when the officiating is this bad every single night?

The Oilers almost got screwed a night earlier and the Leafs got screwed 24 hours later, as did the Avs.

There needs to be a summit on officiating in hockey. It is not good enough and it has never been good enough.

It was not just the non-call against Matthews in this game, either. Bunting was abused all night to no calls.

Absolute garbage.

4. The issue with officiating is pretty obvious.

Refs, for the most part, want to call their games and get out of dodge, without becoming a part of the story. But by trying not to become a part of the story, they are, because a non-call in a big moment is every bit as important as calling a deserved penalty late in a game.

This is more on the league than it is on the actual officials.

5. My three stars from the Leafs loss to the Sabres on Sunday…

1. Marner

2. Mikheyev

3. Kampf

First loss of the season that I would put solely on the shoulders of Sheldon Keefe. He had no business putting Petr Mrazek, the worst goalie in the NHL, in net.

Yes, Erik Kallgren has next to no experience, but it literally cannot get any worse than what is happening every time they trot Mrazek onto the ice.

The experiment has to end. It is over. The signing is the worst of Kyle Dubas’ tenure. Put him on waivers, send him down to the AHL, and move on.

Run Kallgren-Joseph Woll until Dubas trades for a goalie. At worst, that duo gives the Leafs the worst goaltending in the league, which they already have.

And Dubas trading for a goalie cannot be an *if*. Not trading for one and wasting the best season ever by a Maple Leaf would cement his legacy as one of the worst executives in franchise history.

Which would say a lot.

6. My biggest takeaways from the new CBA agreement between MLB and the PA….

• An international draft was always inevitable, as was MLB having to end the qualifying offers for free agents. The fact that this compromise took the amount of time it did is pretty sad.

• If you are, say, a Blue Jays fan, you should be ecstatic with the playoffs being expanded, as it is not all that easy to make the playoffs in the AL East. With that being said, it is bad for the sport. What has made September baseball and playoff baseball so special is that only the best of the best get in. Now, average teams will squeak in here and there.

• I know many baseball fans disagree with this, but I like the universal designated hitter. More jobs for position players and it makes for a better product. I know it takes the “in-game managing” out of the sport but I rather a better product on the field than caring about a double-switch by a manager.

• I am going to miss the runner on second base to begin extra innings. No one loves watching baseball more than me, but no one wants to watch a 20-inning ball game in the middle of June.

• Draft-wise, I do not think a draft lottery does much. Bad teams in baseball will remain very bad. Good on the players for securing 20 rounds in the draft, though.

• I love that teams will face each other at least once a season, regardless of which league they play in. The Cubs and Dodgers should not come to Toronto just once every four years, for example. And sign me up for less games against the AL East.

• I hope the pitch clock in never implemented, as I do not like taking pitchers out of their routine. I am all for implementing a ban on the shift, though. As is the case with a universal designated hitter, I do not care about watching in-game managing. I want to see hits and runs. Baseball was not meant to have a third basemen stand at shortstop.

• The one thing I am surprised the players did not fight more for during these negotiations? Service time. That is probably going to be the biggest issue once this new CBA expires.

7. The signing of Yusei Kikuchi is worth the risk for the Blue Jays.

Yes, he gets hit hard… often, but he has above average swing-and-miss stuff and pitched pretty well against AL East opponents in 2021.

Furthermore, he does not need to be anything close to his All-Star self that he was for a bit in 2021. All he needs to be for the Jays is a number five starter who stays healthy. If he does that and compliments the top four starters in the Jays rotation, they will have one of, if not the best staff in baseball.

8. The Raptors weekend sweep of the Suns and Nuggets has to be the most satisfying stretch of Raptors basketball since, well, two years ago when they were the defending champions and on a winning streak before the pandemic halted the season.

As I have written throughout the course of this season, every team should be absolutely terrified to play this team come the spring. They have an elite head coach, championship DNA, two All-Stars playing at a high level in Fred VanVleet and Pascal Siakam, and the best young player in the league in Scottie Barnes.

The play of Barnes since the All-Star break has been breathtaking. There is no other word to describe it. We are witnessing a superstar in the making. There is no ceiling to what he may end up becoming.

There is all this talk about how the Raptors are going to be stuck in the middle because they don’t have “the guy” but if we are all patient enough, that guy may very well be Barnes.

9. Banning Calvin Ridley for an entire season because he bet on his team while watching from home during his leave of absence is truly incredible.

I get this is a slippery slope but… come on.

10. Aaron Rodgers staying in Green Bay, after all the fuss he put up since the Packers drafted Jordan Love in 2020, is amazing.

Money talks, of course, but if he actually cared about the football-related issues here, which has supposedly been his gripe the entire time, he would have left for the Broncos or Titans.

The Packers Super Bowl window, to me, with or without Rodgers, is closing, even though they will win their division with ease for the next two to three years.

11. The thing with Rodgers too is, outside of all of his antics, is that he was right.

The Packers drafting Jordan Love with a first-round pick, despite being in win-now mode with a future Hall of Fame quarterback, was one of the more outrageous draft picks in recent NFL memory.

And now more than ever, it looks that way.

12. The Broncos trading for Russell Wilson is the ultimate home run.

Who cares that they gave up a ransom? They now have one of the best rosters in the NFL and instantly become a Super Bowl contender.

Will they win one? Probably not, because the AFC is beyond stacked, but they have put themselves right in the mix.

That is all you can ask for if you are a Broncos fan.

13. In team sports, you need to either be rebuilding or trying to win a championship.

Anything in between is pure mediocrity and that is where the Commanders sit after trading for Carson Wentz.

He makes them better, yes, but they are not winning a Super Bowl with him as their starting quarterback. That should have told the Commanders all they needed to know before they made this trade.

14. Tom Brady retired, sat at home for less than two months while doing absolutely nothing, and decided he absolutely could not stay at home any longer.

One of us!