The Edmonton Oilers had an excellent opportunity to close the gap on the Toronto Maple Leafs at the top of the North Division over the past seven days.

It didn’t go the way that Oilers fans hoped it would.

The Maple Leafs (-125) beat Edmonton 6-1 on Wednesday night to complete the sweep of the three-game series.

Toronto, which is 15-2-2 over its past 19 games, pulled 10 points clear of the Oilers with a game in hand following the victory.

The Maple Leafs entered Wednesday night at -350 to win the North Division – their shortest price so far this season.

Right now, it’s hard to imagine any other team even coming close to catching them the rest of the way.

Here is the Morning Coffee for Thursday March 4, 2021.

Maple Leafs Complete Sweep

Jimmy Vesey scored twice, Jason Spezza picked up three assists and Frederick Andersen made 26 saves in Toronto’s win.

It was a dominant finish to a dominant series by the best team in the division.

Before the series, I wrote about how the Oilers had the opportunity to add a little intrigue to a season that has lacked in drama with a strong performance in this series.

Instead, the Maple Leafs made it clear that they are in a class of their own among Canadian teams.

Meanwhile, the Winnipeg Jets have taken advantage of Edmonton’s struggles to move into second place in the North Division.

Winnipeg and Montreal are currently both +850 to beat out Toronto for first place.

While everybody knew that the Maple Leafs were the class of the division heading into this series, Oilers’ fans have to be concerned with their team’s lack of fight.

Edmonton is still the second choice in the division at +450.

It will be interesting to see how the Oilers respond with a four-game homestand up next that includes a date with the Calgary Flames on Saturday night before three in a row against the Ottawa Senators.

The Inside Edge

In addition to Edmonton failing to capitalize on the opportunity to close the gap on Toronto in the standings, Connor McDavid failed to close the gap on Auston Matthews in the Rocket Richard Trophy race over the past three games.

That’s a bit more surprising considering Matthews missed the first two games in the series.

Matthews, who was the betting favourite to lead the NHL in goals at the start of the year, has lived up to expectations so far.

Our TSN Hockey analyst Mike Johnson took a closer look at the current odds for the NHL award winners in contrast with the odds from opening night to highlight some hits and misses by the oddsmakers this season.

Raptors Fall To Pistons

The Toronto Raptors fell to the Detroit Pistons 129-105 in their return to action on Wednesday night.

The Raptors hadn’t played since Feb. 26 and were without five players and several coaches for this one.

Despite the missing pieces, the Raptors were still a 7.5-point favourite – -330 on the money line.

It was just the second win for the Pistons over their past eight games.

The over also hit for just the second time in Detroit’s past eight games.

The Raptors are right back in action tonight against the Boston Celtics.

Also of note in the NBA last night, the Atlanta Hawks came back from down 16 points with less than six minutes to go to beat the Orlando Magic 115-112.

Atlanta pushed as a three-point favourite.

Reading Between The Lines

In case you missed it, the fight card for UFC 259 is absolutely loaded.

From top to bottom, it might just rival the best cards that the UFC has ever produced.

UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya will look to become the first undefeated fighter in the history of the UFC to win two titles simultaneously when he clashes with Jan Blachowicz for the UFC light heavyweight title.

As always, Aaron Bronsteter returned this week with his Reading Between The Lines previews.

Check out his thoughts on the main event.