Weekly Takes - Monday, October 28 Edition

Weekly Takes - Monday, October 28 Edition

1. My three stars from the Maple Leafs dominant win over Tampa Bay on Monday...

1. Anthony Stolarz

2. Auston Matthews

3. Matthew Knies

As dominant of a performance as a team can have against a quality team in a regular season game. The Leafs ran the Lightning out of the building in every single aspect.

The vibes are different with a new, old-school head coach, but it does not stop there. This team is objectivley the best team they have iced in the "Core Four" era. Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman-Larsson were home run signings by Brad Treliving and give the Leafs a high-end top four on the back-end. I had no idea Ekman-Larsson was this physical.

Stolarz, meanwhile, looks like the real deal to me. He is big, athletic, and looks calm in net. We will see how much he can handle from a workload perspective and we will see how he responds once he goes through some struggles, but between him, Tanev, Ekman-Larsson, and Steven Lorentz, Treliving had himself the best offseason by a Leafs general manager in years.

That, combined with Knies and Bobby McMann taking a massive step, make the Leafs look a whole lot better than they even did two weeks ago.

2. My three stars from the Leafs following-up their best regular season win in years with one of their worse losses...

1. Knies

2. Timmins

3. Nick Robertson

   
   

Flat the entire game, with a brutal goaltending performance to make things even worse. As ugly of a loss as you can have.

Games like this will happen throughout the season, but it is all about how they respond Thursday and how they respond against bad teams from here-on-out.

If they want to win the division, they have to beat up on bad teams. It is the biggest thing that needs to change with this team from years past. (When it comes to regular season play, of course)

3. My three stars from the Leafs loss to the Blues on Thursday...

1. John Tavares

2. Ekman-Larsson

3. Ryan Reaves

   
   

   Sloppy situational play + a poor power play did the Leafs in. I am not concerned about the former, as I do trust Bruebe to right the ship in that regard, more so given the team has already shown they can lock in under Breube, But the power play needs a massive overhaul.

   
   

   There is simply not enough puck to go around for the Leafs top players to play together on the top unit.

   
   

   I would go Matthews (left flank) - Nick Robertson (bumper) - Knies (affront of net) - William Nylander (right flank) - Ekman-Larsson (point) as the first unit and Max Domi (left flank) - McMann (bumper) - Tavares (affront of net) - Mitch Marner (right flank) - Morgan Riley (point) as the second unit.

   
   

That way, PP1 is clearly going through Matthews and Nylander and PP2 is clearly going through Marner, rather than all three trying to get puck touches on PP1.

This should be why the Leafs brought Breube in -- to make the tough decisons with his star players. It's about winning, not coddling.

This loss also goes to show that if your star players play as bad as the Leafs’ did, you have no chance, no matter how much the defence has been overhauld or who is coaching. It was an embarrassing performance from Marner and one of the worst games of Matthews’ career. You rather this than depth issues, as you are confident that the star players will right the ship (in the regular season, at least), but woof.

4. My three stars from the Leafs overtime loss to the Bruins on Saturday...

   
   

   1. Stolarz

   2. Knies

   3. Marner

   
   

A big bounce-back game from Matthews and Marner, only for Nylander to have his worst game of the season. Such a disjointed week.

I really did not like this game from the Leafs. They generated nothing in the opening and closing periods, and while they did in the second, they also allowed way too much.

The Leafs have been two things in the regular season in the Matthews era.

1) Slow starters

2) A team incapable of beating up on weaker teams

Maybe they are the same team, after all.

5. Baseball, more than any sport, is a game of routine.

   
   

   Which is why it will forever blow my mind when teams bring starting pitchers out -- in the playoffs only -- to do the jobs of relievers.

   
   

   It makes no sense. Aaron Boone and the Yankees got what they deserved in game one, more so when you consider that Nestor Cortes had not pitched in... a month.

   
   

   6. How can the Colts ever trust Anthony Richardson again?

   
   

Game on the line and your franchise quarterback is too "gassed" to play? The Richardson experiment is over.

7. It is tough to determine what should be made from Eagles-Bengals.

   
   

   Are the Eagles better than anyone thought or are the Bengals simply way worse?

   
   

   Maybe both are true.