Weekly Takes - Monday, September 18th

Weekly Takes - Monday, September 18th

1. With preseason beginning on Sunday, here are what my Maple Leafs lines would be heading into training camp...

Forwards...

Tyler Bertuzzi - Auston Matthews - Mitch Marner

Max Domi - John Tavares - William Nylander

Matthew Knies - David Kampf - Calle Jarnkrok

Pontus Holmberg - Sam Lafferty - Ryan Reaves

Defence...

Morgan Riley (A) - Timothy Liljegren

Jake McCabe - T.J. Brodie

Mark Giordano - John Klingberg

Scratched: Connor Timmins

Goaltending...

Ilya Sasmsonov

Joseph Woll

Up front, it is the best top-six the Leafs have iced in a generation. Bertuzzi is the best player Matthews and Marner have ever been linemates with, which says a lot, given Zach Hyman and Michael Bunting are true top-six players in their own right.

Domi, meanwhile, is the best linemate the duo of Tavares and Nylander have ever been linemates with. He will add a tremendous amount of speed and passing that the duo has badly lacked on their left side over the last couple of seasons.

As for the bottom six, I do not think it is better on paper coming into training camp than it was at the end of last season. I think adding a third-line centre at the deadline, pushing Kampf to 4C and Lafferty to 4RW, is going to be important.

With that being said, Knies and Jarnkrok will provide serious secondary scoring while forming a true shutdown line with Kampf. Jarnkrok struggled to produce offence when playing in the bottom six a season ago, but he also did not have a linemate like Knies on the opposite wing of him.

On the fourth line, I like the speed and defensive elements that Holmberg and Lafferty will provide. The line, in a way, can be a secondary shutdown line. Reaves fills the enforcer role, with all due respect to Wayne Simmonds, that has not been seen in Toronto since Matt Martin.

I think he is the odd-man out if the Leafs do add a 3C at some point, but his role is an important one throughout the season.

Defensively, I would reunite McCabe and Brodie, who struggled in round two, but were excellent in round one going up against Tampa Bay's best players. You need a true shutdown pairing and I think they can be that still.

Riley-Liljegren is a pairing I want to see because if Liljegren can take a step offensively -- which I think he can -- the pairing has the potential to provide lots of offence while playing with the top-six.

The third pairing is where I think work needs to be done. Giordano to me cannot be an everyday guy. The most urgent need right now is finding a defensively sound partner for Klingberg.

The goaltending, meanwhile, is set.

2. Everyone deserves a second chance in life, but it has to be earned. There was never any reason to believe Mike Babcock deserved another chance.

He took time off after being fired by Toronto, yes, but he also took a new job the second his contract with the Leafs ended. So was he taking his time off to become a better man or was he taking it off to collect a paycheque from MLSE?

Good riddance to one of the worst people in the sport.

3. The Alek Manoah situation is officially a gong show.

He never should have been called up in July after only two minor league starts, but he should have reported to the minors without even blinking once he got sent back down. It is a performance business and he was not performing.

So both parties have a lot of blame to go around when it comes to how this situation has been handled.

The next step is for both parties to stop leaking things to the media and to deal with it internally, followed by getting him healthy (or making sure he is healthy) and coming up with an off-season program that he must follow.

Anything else is not helpful, as the Jays do not benefit from making Manoah look bad, whether it is true or not.

He could be the ace of the pitching staff for the next decade. Or he could be gone from the team in a year. It is put up or shut up for all parties involved.

4. I wrote in late August that the Blue Jays simply need to sneak into the playoffs, because if they can do so, who knows what can happen given how great their rotation and bullpen is.

That remains true – it truly does – but it is pathetic that this is where we are at with a core that should be competing for the AL East crown.

It has been a failure of a season. This core should not be hoping to sneak into the playoffs and then hope that they can get hot in October. Instead, they should be playoff shoo-ins focusing on home-field advantage for as many rounds as possible throughout the playoffs.

Anything else than a true September push – which this franchise had in ‘15 and ‘16 – is unacceptable, and this is certainly unacceptable. Major changes need to be in store barring this team going on a playoff run.

Simply sneaking in is not going to be good enough. Not when this management group is in year 8 of running the show.

5. What changes would I make?

I would fire Ross Atkins, replace him with James Click (or Chaim Bloom, who had no business being fired by the Red Sox), and fire John Schneider and all of the hitting coaches on the coaching staff.

I like Atkins, but kind of like Kyle Dubas, maybe bringing in/promoting a fresh face with a fresh perspective is what will be needed to push this program forward. It also offers a jolt for everyone involved, which I think everyone can feel around the Maple Leafs with Brad Treliving now there.

As for Schenider and the hitting coaches, it is a performance business and the performance has been poor, with reason to believe in Schenider’s case that he is not a big league manager.

From there, roster holes and the core can be looked at, but changes would start at the top for me this offseason, barring a playoff run.

Buckle up for a wild two-plus weeks.

6. The Aaron Rodgers injury is simply one of those injuries in sports that deflates everyone involved.

Rodgers is deflated, as his career is now all but over. The Jets and their fans are, as their ceiling now is simply making the playoffs. The media is, as covering Rodgers on the Jets was going to be a soap opera. And fans across the league are, as prime-time games just got a whole lot worse this season given how many the Jets are in.

Just awful.

7. The vibes around Joe Burrow and the Bengals are… bad.

0-2 in the AFC, combined with Burrow’s injury that by all accounts will linger all season, may be enough to write off the Bengals.

It would say a lot about Zac Taylor as a head coach if they can prove otherwise.

8. The Chargers have a true franchise quarterback, yet no matter what he seems to do, it is never enough for the Chargers as a whole.

That is the true trademark of a bad franchise.

9. The story of the Commanders-Broncos game, to many, is the decline of a once-great Broncos defence + Russell Wilson.

For me, the game was all about Eric Bieniemy.

Turns out he was not a product of Patrick Mahomes after all.

10. My Week 3 NFL Picks, after going 10-4 in week two, with Monday Night Football still pending…

• Giants (+10.5)

• Vikings (+1)

• Commanders (+6.5)

• Packers (-2)

• Falcons (+4)

• Titans (+5)

• Jaguars (-9.5)

• Jets (+3)

• Dolphins (-6.5)

• Ravens (-7.5)

• Seahawks (-4.5)

• Cowboys (-12.5)

• Kansas City (-13)

• Steelers (+1)

• Bucs (+6.5)

• Bengals (-1.5)

On the season, I am 15-15.