Sincere Sports

  Auston Matthews (Claus Andersen, Getty Images)     An impressive end to the 2021 calendar year for Toronto hasn't exactly carried over to 2022, with the Leafs having trouble stringing 60 consistent minutes of hockey together.     Nevertheless, as a whole, the 2021-22 season should be seen a success. After another devastating playoff loss last year, the Leafs are in the top 5 in the NHL in terms of points percentage. Their first-ranked power play and sixth-ranked penalty kill have been major parts of this strong season, but there have been some really strong individual performances as well.     Following the Leafs' 41st game of the NHL season (the halfway point of their regular season campaign), I decided to give each Leafs player a grade and compare it to the grades that I showed at the 1/4 mark of their season. I thought it would be interesting to see if the grades had changed much.      Let's begin with the forwards.

  Cyle Larin (Sportsnet, Twitter)     A famous win for the Canadian Men National Team over their arch-nemesis, the United States of America, was capped off by a stoppage time winner from Sam Adekugbe.     Here are my 5 takeaways from a match that brought Canada a step closer to qualification for the Qatar World Cup. 

  Michael Bunting celebrates a goal (Dave Reginek, Getty Images)     Michael Bunting's second career hat trick helped the Leafs flip the script and come back from a 3-1 deficit against the Detroit Red Wings.     Here are my 5 takeaways from a thriller in the Motor City.

  Rafael Nadal (ATP Tour.com)     It was a thrilling run of semifinals in Melbourne over the past two days. After two weeks of relentless tennis, the finals are set.     On the men's side, it's Rafael Nadal against Daniil Medvedev. Rafa is one of the best players of all-time and a win on Sunday would give him the most major wins in men's tennis history. His opponent, Medvedev, has been the second best player on tour since the start of 2021, and his immaculate play at the US Open led to him being the only man to beat Novak Djokovic in a Grand Slam event.     In the women's corner, home favourite Ash Barty is pitted against underdog Danielle Collins. Barty has been untouchable in Australia, winning every single set en route to one of the most dominant tourney performances in recent memory. Collins has proven capable in Australia, but this is her first ever major final.     If you read my semifinal preview, you would know that I am somethin...

  The Leafs' PP1 unit (Julian Avram, Getty Images)     Though the score of the game made it look like a narrow win, the Maple Leafs dominated all facets of the game in their return from a long road trip.     Here are my 5 takeaways from a strong showing against the Anaheim Ducks. 

  Ash Barty (Florian Eisele, AELTC)     It has been a thrilling Australian Open so far. The first Grand Slam event of 2022 has seen Rafael Nadal find his best form, world number 1 Ashleigh Barty completely wipe the floor with all of her opponents on home soil and the devastating defeats of two Canadian men in the ATP quarterfinals.      We've finally reached the semifinals of the tourney. There is a fun mix of elite talent and young sleepers trying to break onto the scene.      On the men's side, I did quite well with my predictions in a sport as volatile as tennis. I managed to predict three of the four semifinalists, with Stefanos Tsitsipas being the one to break my bracket after beating Jannik Sinner in the quarters. The other semifinalists are Rafael Nadal, Matteo Berrettini and Daniil Medvedev.     In the women's tournament, Australian native Ash Barty, unranked American Madison Keys, Keys' countrywoman Danielle Collins and Pol...

  Josh Ho-Sang (Nick Barden, Leafs Nation)     Team Canada has officially named their roster for the 2022 Beijing Olympics hockey tournament and it's underwhelming. Not to say I could've done a better job, as I didn't have access to watching all the practice tapes, but more so because of the NHL pulling out of the tournament.     We've known for several weeks now that we wouldn't get the highly anticipated best-on-best tournament in Beijing, but it really only settled in for me when I saw the IIHF's leaked tweet, revealing Canada's team, yesterday night. For the second consecutive Olympics, we will not get NHL talent on the international stage.     There is a significant lack of speed and skill on Canada's roster and currently I don't think they are the favourite for the tournament (I believe the Americans are the best-equipped to take the gold right now). There is a lot of size and experience, particularly on the back end. There are some notable pla...

  Jarrod Bowen (Rob Newell, Getty Images)       The English Premier League is one of the most ferocious sports leagues in the world. It is the absolute pinnacle of the global sport that is football.       Just kidding, we all knew Manchester City were going to win it this year, right?        At the start of every season, I write down my predictions for where the 20 teams will end up in the table. I’m often wrong, but sometimes I make such a genius prediction that it boosts my self-confidence for the next week.        So, since I was so anxious to take a look at my predictions, I quickly brainstormed a way to fit this into an article. I figured that if I made some new predictions now, more than halfway through the season with the info at our disposal, I could compare my current predictions to those made in August. That way, I can break down what is currently going on in the Prem, while also satisfying my need to s...

  Jonathan Huberdeau (The Canadian Press)     Another exciting fortnight of NHL hockey. The Edmonton Oilers absolutely collapsed and then won against the Calgary Flames. The Florida Panthers scored 16 goals in two games and then promptly lost to the same Calgary Flames team that even Edmonton beat. The Leafs blew 20 straight multi-goal leads or something like that. All in all, it was another good week of hockey action in a season that just keeps on giving.     Like I did two weeks ago, I'll be counting down the 32 teams in the league and writing a little blurb on each one. The power rankings are based primarily on the whole season, but recent play is weighed a bit more heavily than that of three months ago.     Let's get on with it!

  Morgan Rielly (Toronto Maple Leafs, Twitter)     After a shaky road trip brought out the magnifying lens on the Leafs' mental fortitude, they prevailed in a physical game, while getting good goaltending from somebody not named Jack Campbell.     Here are my 5 takeaways from a defensive show on Long Island.

  Nikola Jokic (Gerald Herbert, The Associated Press)     We have reached the halfway mark of the NBA season. Most teams have played at least 41 games and order is starting to be discovered. We know which teams are good, which teams are bad, and which players are in their best form.      Naturally, it seemed like the perfect time to look at the NBA award races and just take a quick look at who are the current favourites as well as a couple possible challengers to the crown.      I'll be listing three different options for each award and will be fitting them into three different categories.      Favourit e: the most likely winner of the award at this point     Runner-Up: the option next in line if the favourite falters     Sleeper: another possible option who I expect could take a step up and challenge for the award          With the explanation out of the way, let's get on with it....

       Ryan Reaves (New York Rangers, Twitter)     Another frustrating night to be a Leafs fan, as Toronto blew a multi-goal lead for the fourth time in 5 games against the New York Rangers.     Here are my 5 takeaways from another loss on this dispiriting road trip. Matthews’ Streak Ends     It’s been an incredible stretch for Auston Matthews, but his streak of 11 consecutive road games with a goal came to an end tonight.      A somewhat controversial kicking motion call ended the Leafs’ hopes deep into the third period.       Other than the kick and a good chance at the end of the second period, Matthews had a rough go. He played with energy, but the usually silky American turned the puck over and lost some key face offs,    eventually ending the game with a 47% face off win percentage.     This game really exposed just how important Matthews is to the Leafs’ cause and it...

  Kent Hughes (Le Soleil)     Montreal have finally announced who will be taking over the permanent general manager for the foreseeable future and it's a Jeff Bezos doppelganger.       All jokes aside, the news broke late Monday night that Kent Hughes was going to be announced as the next general manager for the Canadiens. He isn't a household name for most casual hockey fans, though he's been a big part of the game for two decades.     So who is Montreal's next GM? How important will he truly be now that the Habs employ Jeff Gorton as their executive VP? Does this signal the start of a rebuild? Can we expect anything drastic to change? Most importantly of all, how does this impact the rest of the league?     I'll answer all these questions and more in a Who?, What?, Where?, When?, Why?, How? manner.     Let's delve into these answers to explain how Kent Hughes will be a key part of a transformative era for the Montreal C...

  Daniil Medvedev (Lawrence Ostlere, Getty Images)     We have yet to see a single set of tennis at the Australian Open and already this year's tourney in Melbourne is making headlines around the world.     The controversial Novak Djokovic case has finally been resolved after weeks of shuffling between the Australian government and the Serbian's lawyers. After failing in his appeal early Sunday morning, the world number 1 has been deported from Australia and could face a ban of up to three years from the country, not allowing him to visit Australia for the next three Opens.     From a tennis perspective, it's frustrating to see men's tennis' best player not be able to participate, though Djokovic brought this wrath upon himself by acting as if he was above the law. In a country that has suffered through as many draconian lockdowns as Australia, this simply wasn't going to be permitted.     Despite that, many players will be thrilled to not se...

  Toronto Maple Leafs (Twitter.com)      Leafs fans truly can never experience a moment of peace.     A thriller of a game, including multiple blown leads, finally ended after an Ilya Mikheyev game-winning goal with 3 minutes remaining.      Here are my 5 takeaways from the Leafs' win against the St. Louis Blues.

  Ashley Landis (Associated Press)     Up to this point, I haven't written any MLB articles. For anybody unaware, Major League Baseball's CBA (collective bargaining agreement) expired without extension for the first time in 25 years. In other words, there's a lockout.      With nothing happening in baseball, it was hard to preview anything, considering we have no clue when the league will return to action. What we do know is that when it does, there will be a lot to talk about.      We are in the midst of a free agency period in which several stars like Carlos Correa, Freddie Freeman, Trevor Story, and Japanese prodigy Seiya Suzuki are still on the market.      For now though, I decided to take a look at the top 10 MLB players at each position. This will be somewhat similar to my top 50 NHL players, except it will be split into positions. This is mainly due to the fact that it is almost impossible to compare some positions in b...

  Mark J. Rebilas (USA Today)     The Leafs went into an obvious trap game in Arizona and lost despite outplaying the Yotes for the entire game.      Here are my 5 takeaways from Toronto's frustrating loss in the desert.

  Zak Krill (Getty Images)     The Toronto Maple Leafs improved to 21-4-2 in their last 27 games with a shaky win over a battered Vegas Golden Knights squad.      Here are my 5 takeaways from a game in which the Leafs took their foot off the gas at the wrong time. 

  Peter Baugh (TheAthletic)      The NHL is a peculiar league. Bad teams beat good teams, good teams beat better teams, and sometimes the best teams just beat everybody.       In that sense, it's not easy to make a power rankings when something will immediately change the very next night. Despite that, many of my readers aren't quite able to keep up on every game going on in the hockey world. Understandable. So, I decided I would spark up a new series here on Sincere Sports.     Every two weeks, I will rank every team in the NHL based on how well they are performing.       Casual fans are most often interested in knowing which teams are good and which teams are bad. My hope is that these articles can summarize that.      With the intro out of the way, let's get onto the teams.

BY ERIK LAGERWEIJ Colorado Avalanche (Twitter.com)     It was 4-1...     Another infamous choke by the Toronto Maple Leafs was capped off on Saturday tonight, as two NHL heavyweights went toe-to-toe in a thrilling game.      Here are my 5 takeaways from the disheartening loss in the Mile High City.

BY ERIK LAGERWEIJ Steven Ryan (Getty Images)     Out of nowhere, the Toronto Raptors are on an absolute heater. Sure, the first half of their last game against a very short-staffed Utah Jazz team was ugly at best, but they got it done. Like most sports leagues, results matter more than process in the NBA and the 2022 Raptors are undoubtedly picking up results.     Helped by a supernova performance from starting point guard Fred VanVleet, the Raptors capped off a win against the Utah Jazz's G-League team for their fifth straight win. Not only that, but they've now won 10 of their last 14. After a somewhat frustrating start to the season, Toronto is firmly positioned to make the Eastern Conference play-in round.      The real question remains: how did a team that was 9-13 on December 1st turn it around this quickly? Maybe they pushed really hard to achieve their New Year's resolution early or maybe it's a bit more complicated. What could it be? Either wa...

     Tim Campbell (NHL.com) BY ERIK LAGERWEIJ     The NHL doesn't always get a lot of credit for being the most difficult among North America's 4 major sports. However, as those of us who watch hockey know with absolute certainty, sliding around an ice surface at 30 kilometres per hour is no small feat. Add in the required skill of handling a small black biscuit and the thousands of split-second decisions, you'll see that playing hockey at the professional level calls for an incredible amount of athletic prowess.      Therefore, it is even more impressive when we see a player like Connor McDavid  embarrass his peers and show a proficiency much higher than the average player.      Now that 2022 has begun, I decided to count down the top 50 players in the NHL for the year ahead. I can't use words to describe how thin some of the margins were between some players, as this league is full to the brim with game-breaking talent. ...

  BY ERIK LAGERWEIJ     One thing that is common among all Formula 1 speculators is the random thought of who may be driving for your favourite constructor in a few years' time. Will your team bring in a new hotshot rookie in the mould of Max Verstappen in 2015 or will they unearth the next Carlos Sainz, a perennially underappreciated driver who brings hope back to the lineup?      Naturally, this got me thinking. What do I expect the grid will look like in 3 years' time? Not only that, but how will your team perform during this new era following the drastic regulation changes of the past two seasons?     Of course, I could be horribly wrong. F1 is notoriously hard to predict. As the late Murray Walker often said during his commentary, "Anything can happen in Grand Prix racing, and it usually does." This applies both on track and in the paddock.      Regardless, I thought it would be a blast to make some predictions as to ...

     BY ERIK LAGERWEIJ    The January transfer window is a frantic time for all clubs. Whether they are fighting for a place in the Champions League or hoping to survive relegation, January is a month of opportunity. It offers respite to underperforming clubs and it offers continuity to teams that are vastly outperforming expectations.      It is usually a letdown for those fans that get way too excited and expect their board to submit a 100 million pound bid for Dusan Vlahovic, when in reality, they'll probably sign a backup centerback and appoint a new set-piece coach. But, on those rare occasions when a team actually splashes the cash, everybody gets excited.      No matter where your club rests, it is important to pursue at least one addition to the squad. Some teams need to do much more than others, though it would be wise for everybody to at least ask around and submit a bid for a top target.      So, to feed in...