https://twitter.com/DarrenDreger/status/1631298353702092802

The Nets have finally suspended Kyrie Irving for "at least" 5 games:

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/34942326/nets-suspend-kyrie-irving-least-five-games-pay

And if I could just say, as a Jewish person, what a bummer this all is. Between him and Kanye the idea that these attitudes are creeping back into society is really, really disheartening. That's why I think it's so bogus when people say that anyone "goes around looking for reasons to be offended". Anti-semitism, of the sort scene here, just makes me feel bad. I don't want it in my life. I don't want to have to edit my spotify playlists because some doofus who makes good music thinks my people nefariously control the world's economy. It just flat-out sucks.

Schedule

Roster


Well it should be an interesting year for the guys. I think the first stretch have games has shown us what a lot of people were saying before the season, namely that while this is a good team that should be competitive most nights they're still a step below the elite contenders.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/canada-announces-diplomatic-boycott-of-beijing-olympics-athletes-will-still-compete-1.5698625

Have to be honest, I think this is pretty gutless. Nobody cares about a diplomatic presence at the Olympics. By sending the Athletes you're effectively endorsing the games.

https://www.nba.com/raptors/schedule

https://www.nba.com/raptors/roster

Well, they're back and, uh, they might not be great. Either way, this is the place to talk about this year's Raptors and, by mid-year, post Chet Holmgren highlight videos.

https://twitter.com/FriedgeHNIC/status/1426270037883633670

https://twitter.com/Sz1909_Szemberg/status/1387035675384446977

Sad to hear. He was pretty good for some of those terrible 80's teams.

https://www.espn.com/soccer/uefa-champions-league/story/4364173/man-unitedjuventustottenham-among-team-to-participate-in-super-league

So this sort of seems to be the big story in the sports world. I'm not the biggest soccer fan, or even one at all to be honest, but the way I understand it is that 12 of the biggest teams in Europe who play in their domestic leagues but also play in a Europe-wide Champions league that they have to earn their way into based on merit have decided instead to replace the Champions league with a league they've created themselves where they'll have permanent spots in and only a few spots will be available for teams from smaller leagues to earn a place.

Basically, it looks like the Americanization of European soccer where a handful of teams are "Major League" and earn the most money and the rest are minor leagues. It's lead to all sorts of outrage from Soccer's governing bodies, including threats that the players on these teams(which comprise some of the best players in the world) could be banned from international competitions. That has led to threats of lawsuits from the 12 clubs.

Anyways, it seems like a real mess.

So as mentioned in yesterday's gameday thread the buzz seems to be that the big addition that the Leafs are looking to make is to add someone to play in the top 6. Personally, I think that makes a fair amount of sense as Kerfoot is probably the guy in the lineup right now who looks the least suited to what's being asked of him and the Tavares-Nylander pairing could do with a bit of juicing(and with the MEH line looking as good as it does, breaking that up to help the 2nd line seems like a waste)

So with that in mind who are candidates people like? How much cap room do they have to work with? I mentioned Rickard Rakell the other night but could Taylor Hall be viable considering his re-signing in Buffalo seems...unlikely at this point? Is that even the position the Leafs should be addressing?

Admittedly it's still a long way off but some concrete news:

https://twitter.com/reporterchris/status/1356983016556552194

Seems like an alright choice.

So with Wayne Gretzky turning 60 I was thinking it was kind of ridiculous that the League hasn't chosen some form of lasting honour in Gretzky's name. While Gretzky isn't my choice for best player ever in terms of peak performance, it's hard to argue with his career as the best ever. So given that we've already got the Richard and Lindsay, I feel like it's probably time to start thinking about the right way to honour Gretzky with an award. Some ideas:

1. Rename the Art Ross. In general I don't think awards should be renamed because it maybe suggests the honour is temporary but this seems like the best fit.

2. Rename the Conn Smythe. Same as above. I like this less because the fit seems less appropriate and the Conn Smythe trophy itself is so cool.

3. All Star Game MVP. Kind of a minor award that nobody pays a lot of attention to but it's unnamed right now at least.

4. Come up with some sort of equivalent to the Hank Aaron award. Either a Best Forward award or maybe a Best Overall Player thing.

Anyways, just spitballing on a snowy morning. Thoughts?

Some interesting roster news. The Jays have apparently signed Kirby Yates. Yates was hurt and ineffective last year but the year before led the NL in saves and struck out 101 batters in 60.2 innings.

The Lou Marsh Award was announced today and it was won by both Alphonso Davies of Bayern Munich and Laurence Duvernay-Tardif of the KC Chiefs.

Seems like a nice outcome but some Soccer fans are hilariously upset about it.

4 time cup winner with the Leafs, legendary broadcaster and one time Federal Member of Parliament Howie Meeker has passed away at 97. What a career.

So I brought this up on another site but I thought it might be worth discussing here.

Basically, when a team wins a championship it's instructive to look at how they did it and how a team might try to recreate their success. Now, in Tampa's case, there are a lot of examples of them being a smart and well managed team that seem to fit that. There's finding Kucherov in the 2nd round, there's the Drouin-Sergachev trade, there's investing a high draft pick in the right goalie, finding good undrafted players...

But let's be real, if you were trying to put together an approximation of Tampa's roster, really your first step would have to be "Find several world class players and convince them all to take drastically below market deals" and...ok, how? How is that repeatable?

But beyond that, I think you have to notice a trend here. When you look at most of the recent cup winners, you're going to find that a huge chunk of their performance can, at least in part, be chalked up to world class players on contracts that they're outplaying by a great deal. Whether that's young guys on cheap 2nd contracts(Chicago with Toews/Kane, LA) or it's players on contracts that are no longer legal(Pittsburgh, Washington, Chicago with Hossa/Keith).

So where does that leave teams now that it looks like those cheap 2nd deals are a thing of the past and backdiving deals can't be signed? Are the champion teams of tomorrow going to be teams that have the sort of inherent advantages Tampa has? Or is it just going to be teams who have the good fortune to have their players not be the type to maximize their deals(or, in Colorado's case, a weird Mackinnon like development pattern?)

Because I really don't think it's good for the league if a chief lesson to take away right now is that it's very hard to build a championship team around star players paid appropriately.

https://twitter.com/FriedgeHNIC/status/1306622707719692289

https://twitter.com/Zeisberger/status/1287391279349981184

Before my time but I met him as a kid in the parking lot of the St. Lawrence Market and he couldn't have been a nicer guy.

Just because I'm bored...

Tomorrow they'll announce this year's inductees into the HHOF. Jarome Iginla, in his first year on the ballot, seems like the only sure thing. Marian Hossa, despite still technically being under contract, is also on the ballot and it seems crazy to me that he wouldn't also be put in on the first go. The other first year guys of any note being eligible are Brian Campbell(nice player, no chance) and Shane Doan(lol)

Beyond that it's the typical backlog of semi-qualified guys who almost certainly would be in if they played in the inflated scoring years of the 70's and 80's but who struggle to stand out from the crowd. I think Mogilny has the best case of those guys with Fleury, Cujo and Lecavalier being three guys I'd also largely be in favour of.

My guess is that the HHOF screws it up again and they skip Hossa, induct Iginla and probably put in Alfredsson as well.

https://twitter.com/reporterchris/status/1263643064498823168

Yes, this will produce a very legitimate champion.

An interesting opinion piece in the New York Times today, some of the choice points being made are:

We cannot protect our environment while continuing to eat meat regularly...

We cannot claim to care about the humane treatment of animals while continuing to eat meat regularly...

We cannot protect against pandemics while continuing to eat meat regularly...

These are all paragraph headers that are then elaborated on. Basically the argument makes the case that eating meat regularly is bad for our health, our wallets, our planet and animals themselves.

Because I'm trying to use our bizarre circumstances to get in better shape I've been changing my diet a lot lately and purely for health reasons it's involved less meat and different kinds of animal protein. More fish, more chicken, less beef, almost entirely no pork. That said, the idea of ever completely going vegetarian or vegan is super-outside my comfort zone. I'm a lifelong burger/brisket/ribs lover and the thought of going completely without is a big bummer at a time when comfort foods are frequently calling. I've been trying to also buy the meat I do eat from small, local organic suppliers but cow farts are cow farts and there's not going to be a vaccine for climate change. 

Anyone else feeling this? Or changing up their diet? I know it can be tough right now when we're not able to shop as much as we used to and a lot of people's employment is up in the air but as the article says a meat-free diet can be less expensive than the meat we're buying.

Just as a way to keep busy or engage the board I thought I'd start with asking people to name their personal team of favourite Leafs. Not best, just guys you like or you associate with your fandom. Naming 13 forwards, 7 d, 3 goalies. If you want it to be guys you didn't see from the olden days...I mean, I can't stop you.

But here's mine

Clark-Sundin-Tucker
Andreychuk-Gilmour-Olcyzk
Stumpy-Matthews-Damphousse
Kulemin-Antropov-Borschevsky
Berezin

Lefevbre-Kaberle
Markov-Yushkevich
Ellett-Rouse
Rielly

Potvin
Joseph
Scrivens

[TOR]

@
31-20-8, 70 points | 26-24-8, LOL

Projected Lines

Hyman-Matthews-Marner Nylander-Tavares-Kapanen Engvall-Kerfoot-Spezza Clifford-Gauthier-Timashov Muzzin-Holl Dermott-Barrie Sandin-Liljegren Andersen

Olofsson-Eichel-Reinhart Vesey-Lazar-Frolik Skinner-Rodrigues-Sheary Girgensons-Larsson-Okposo Montour-Ristolainen Dahlin-Miller McCabe-Jokiharju? Hutton

Scratches

Marincin Korshkov

Some Scrubs

Game Notes

TOR
•Campbell yesterday, Andersen today. Didn't need to rest goalies in back to backs in my day. Goalies played 70 games a season and still found time to offer police officers a billion dollars to let them out of jail.
•Korshkov got called up. I'm assuming he's a scratch. If he ever scores a goal for the Leafs I will donate some money to a charity of Herman's choice.

BUF
•I don't care about the Sabres so here are some fun facts about famous people from Buffalo
•Rick James. Did you know Rick James was in a band with Neil Young named the Mynah Byrds? They were just about to record an album when James was arrested for going AWOL from the Navy.
•William Sadler. The name might not be familiar but he's the bad guy in Die Hard 2, one of the inmates in The Shawshank Redemption and The Grim Reaper in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey
•Warren Spahn. Won 363 games in the Major Leagues and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. 
•The Goo Goo Dolls. Remember them?

Injuries

•Andreas Johnsson - Knee - Injured Reserve •Cody Ceci - Ankle - Injured Reserve •Morgan Rielly - Foot - Injured Reserve •Ilya Mikheyev - Wrist - Injured Reserve

•Some guys, I guess

Steam Options

- Shu Mai
- Har Gau
- Char Siu Bao

Well might as well start this off with a nutty trade:

To Dodgers: Mookie Betts, David Price
To Twins: Kenta Maeda
To Red Sox: Alex Verdugo, Brusdar Graterol

So, to cap it off, an incredibly profitable team in a huge market traded one of the best players in the world because they didn't want to pay the luxury tax and be slightly less profitable. What a scam the owners are pulling these days.

https://twitter.com/reporterchris/status/1217070616815308803

Lot of money/term for a 32 year old but Backstrom is pretty durable. Only played fewer than 75 games in a full season once.

Also, and this came as a bit of a shocker to me, but he's almost at this point a 100% guaranteed lock of a hall of famer. If he averages even 50 points a year over this new deal he'll retire with around 1200. Stanley Cup(and good playoff scoring numbers), Olympic Silver, multiple World Championships...probably the most underrated player of his generation.

Russia banned for 4 years from international competition

This apparently will also apply to the FIFA World Cup. Not sure if it applies  any IIHF stuff but apparently, like the last Olympics, clean Russian athletes will be apply to compete as independents.