Wednesday night’s game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Edmonton Oilers was billed as a clash of two Canadian contenders trending in opposite directions.

From that perspective, the game played out exactly as expected.

The Maple Leafs beat the Oilers 4-2 as a -310 favourite for their fourth straight win.

Toronto also covered the puck line at -135 with an empty-net goal with 15 seconds left. The total pushed on six.

The Maple Leafs are now 15-2-2 versus Edmonton over the past six seasons.

The good news for the Oilers is that they won’t have to play Toronto again this season.

The bad news is that they’ve lost five in a row and could be on the outside of the playoff picture looking in shortly if they don’t turn things around soon.

Here’s the TSN EDGE Morning Coffee for Thursday Jan. 6, 2022.

 

Maple Leafs deal Oilers another blow

The Maple Leafs have been money versus Edmonton in recent years, and they’ve been money at home so far this season as well.

Toronto is 14-4-1 at Scotiabank Arena. Only the Florida Panthers have won more games on home ice so far this season.

John Tavares, T.J. Brodie, Ilya Mikheyev and Alexander Kerfoot all scored for the Maple Leafs in Wednesday’s win.

Jack Campbell made 28 saves to improve to 17-5-2 this season.

In case you missed it on Wednesday, our NHL analyst Mike Johnson highlighted the outstanding run that Campbell has been on to start this season, which has him as the new favourite to win the Vezina Trophy.

Meanwhile, goaltending has been a major problem for an Oilers’ side that is now 2-9-2 over their past 13 games dating back to Dec. 3.

At the start of December, Edmonton led the NHL in points percentage and was considered the most likely Canadian team to make the playoffs at -1600.

As of this morning, the Oilers are now -235 to qualify for the postseason.

That’s a 24 per cent drop in implied probability, from 94 per cent to 70 per cent.

Over that same span, the Maple Leafs have gone from -800 to -5000 to make the playoffs. That’s a nine per cent increase in implied probability, from 89 per cent to 98 per cent.

Toronto is now +1000 to win the Stanley Cup. Only the Colorado Avalanche (+550), Vegas Golden Knights (+750) and Tampa Bay Lightning (+800) have shorter odds to win it all.

Meanwhile, the Pittsburgh Penguins (-135 ML) beat the St. Louis Blues 5-3 to extend their win streak to seven in a row.

A two-team parlay with both NHL favourites paid +130.

NHL favourites are now 31-16 since the league resumed play on Dec. 28.

 

Raptors push win streak to four

Pascal Siakam led the way with 33 points, six assists and five rebounds as the Toronto Raptors (+120 ML) beat the Milwaukee Bucks 117-111 on Wednesday night.

Gary Trent Jr. finished with 22 points and five boards. OG Anunoby had 22 points and six rebounds.

The Raptors have now won four in a row and are 9-4 straight up since Dec. 1.

Toronto has also covered five straight and is 9-1 against the spread over its past 10 games.  

It was an even split straight up between the favourites and underdogs in the NBA on Wednesday night, but the dogs went 6-3-1 ATS with the Brooklyn Nets beating the Indiana Pacers 129-121 as an eight-point favourite in the lone push.

Kyrie Irving went for 22 points, four assists and three rebounds in his season debut for Brooklyn.

Irving to go over 20.5 points in his return cashed.

While Irving’s return was the big story from that game, the most bizarre turn was Lance Stephenson almost stealing the show with 20 points in the first quarter.

Meanwhile, the San Antonio Spurs beat the Boston Celtics 99-97 as a +250 money line underdog.

Kevin Porter Jr. beat the buzzer as the Houston Rockets (+245) beat the Washington Wizards 114-111.

 

Rodgers responds to MVP voter’s comments

On Tuesday, we learned that at least one writer with an NFL MVP vote would not make Aaron Rodgers his selection.

 

On Wednesday, Rodgers had a chance to respond to those comments.

As of this morning, Rodgers remains the favourite to win the award at -400.

He won’t be a unanimous selection, but I still think Rodgers will win MVP.

 

PGA Tour returns at Kapalua

After a six-week break, the 2021-22 PGA Tour season will resume with the Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua.

After adjusting the rules to boost the field size last year following the cancelation of several tournaments in 2020 due to COVID, the traditional Tournament of Champions rules will resume with a field that features all last year’s PGA Tour winners as well as Xander Schauffele, who won Olympic gold in Tokyo.

Justin Thomas and Jon Rahm will open the tournament as co-favourites to win it at +800.

The return of the PGA Tour means the Golf Talk Canada guys are back this week with their best bets to win the Tournament of Champions.

There’s still plenty of time to get your bets in before the tournament tees off later this afternoon.

Let’s hope we can start off the 2022 calendar year with a winner on the PGA Tour.