Weekly Takes - Monday, November 1 Edition

Weekly Takes - Monday, November 1 Edition

1. No three stars in the Maple Leafs' loss to Carolina on Monday, although Nick Ritchie played well.

They had a decent third period as a team but completely mailed in their first forty minutes, led by Mitch Marner, who should not have seen the ice after his effort on the Canes’ third goal.

The result was not the worst part of the night for the Leafs, though.

Sheldon Keefe’s “we learned a lot of lessons tonight” speech may be the most annoying comment a Leafs head coach has made in years.

He has said all of the right things since taking over, so maybe he is trying to play the “good cop” card for a change but under no circumstance should he have played the “we have learned a lot of lessons” card.

This team is past regular season lessons. Full stop.

2. My three stars from the Maple Leafs’ much-needed overtime win over the Blackhawks on Wednesday…

1. Jack Campbell

2. Marner

3. John Tavares

Easily Marner’s best game of the season. This team badly needed a win and their best players got the job done. This is going to have to be the theme of the next couple of weeks as they try and dig themselves out of the hole that they have put themselves in.

(Yes, this is going to have to be the theme from here on out, but more so the next couple of weeks as they try and cool this market down and try and not fall out of the playoff race completely.)

3. My three stars from the Maple Leafs ugly win over the Red Wings on Saturday…

1. Tavares

2. Bunting

3. Marner

They played pretty well. Petr Mrazek was not good, although that was to be expected, to some extent. Tavares played his best game of the season and Marner looked good again. He is still not back to being the regular season Marner of old but he is quickly snapping out of whatever headspace he was in to begin this season.

My biggest takeaway from this game is that they pass the puck way too much still.

Less passing, more shooting. An extra move does not always need to be made.

4. The Morgan Rielly contract is outstanding.

He is currently one of the best defencemen on the planet and there is no reason to believe that he cannot be top pairing defenceman for the majority of his contract.

And he makes under eight million dollars.

Yes, the end of the contract may not be great but the Leafs flat out could not afford to lose Rielly after this season. He is the one star on this team that has consistently shown up in the playoffs.

If the Leafs manage to win a Cup sometime in the next three or four years, I could not care less how his contract ages.

That is the exact same reason why I would have brought back Hyman.

5. Stan Bowman, Joel Quenneville, Kevin Cheveldayoff, Donald Fehr, and everyone who knew of this incident 10 years ago should and can never work another day in the National Hockey League, not only because of their actions (or lack thereof) 10 years ago, but for their lies and lack of remorse to this day.

At the end of the day, this is truly a breathtaking story.

The lengths these men -- and others -- went to in order to protect a trainer of all people is truly mind-blowing. It truly says everything.

And with all due respect to Kyle Beach, the worst part is without question the fact that Chicago went on to allow Brad Aldrich to leave the team to join a university (and then a high school) where he would then sexually assault a 16-year-old.

The definition of sickening.

6. Even the most optimistic Scottie Barnes fan would not have seen this start to his career coming.

Sure, his ball-handling, playmaking, defence, and rebounding is as advertised, but no one saw his shooting being this strong, this early.

He truly has no ceiling. The fact that he is already mastering his mid-range shot is… very bad news for the rest of the league.

7. Mike Tomlin was right to be insulted by the USC rumours. He has the safest and one of the best coaching jobs in North American sport.

And spare me the “he should get out before the Steelers have a downfall” conversation.

The Steelers, for the foreseeable future, have a top-five defence, a future star at running back, a promising tight end, and a pair of great wide receivers.

Yes, the offensive line needs to be revamped and yes, the Steelers need a quarterback of the future, but this team is going to be in contention, year-in, year-out, for a long time.

8. My week nine NFL picks…

• Colts (-8.5)

• Falcons (+6)

• Raiders (+1.5)

• Patriots (+1)

• Vikings (+7)

• Bengals (+4.5)

• Bills (-6.5)

• Texans (+7.5)

• Cowboys (-4.5)

• Chargers (-2)

• Packers (+3.5)

• Cardinals (+5)

• Rams (-5.5)

• Bears (+5.5)

Mike White and the Jets ended my survivor hopes in week eight. Tough.

I went 10-4 in week eight and now sit 63-53 on the season, with Monday Night Football still pending.

9. I have said this for three years now but Michigan has to fire Jim Harbaugh.

Yes, you can do a lot worse than Harbaugh if you are Michigan, but they have too storied of a program for beating up on bad schools and losing to every top school to be the new standard.

Their loss to Michigan State is Harbaugh’s tenure in a nutshell.

10. Speaking of MSU, I still think they’ll need to run the table to make the playoffs.

At this rate, Georgia and Cincinnati are getting in, unless they drop two games (which I do not see happening at all), while I think Oklahoma is getting in too, although they have a very tough schedule to close out their season.

That leaves one more spot for one of Alabama, The Ohio State, and MSU (and perhaps Oregon, although they will need a lot to go their way.)

MSU is not getting in ahead of Alabama (and probably not The Ohio State) if they all have one loss.