SIMMONS SAYS: Justin Bieber fans on his one-timer at NHL draft

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THIS AND THAT

The Leafs had hoped to trade Morgan Rielly in a Brandon Carlo kind of deal but couldn’t find a suitor. They save more than $4 million in moving Carlo, which is not unlike the savings they were hoping to find if they moved Rielly. They probably would have had to eat $2 million of Rielly’s $7.5 million-a-year deal if dealing the longtime Leaf. So Rielly would have represented a $5.5 savings in salary spending next year instead of the $4.1 on Carlo … Why is there so little interest in Rielly? From an Eastern Conference GM: His mobility is gone and his decision-making is in decline … No Canadian team has won the Stanley Cup since Montreal in 1993. Since then, nine different Canadian teams have picked first in the NHL draft. Two of those teams — Edmonton and Ottawa — have played for the Cup … Ten years ago Friday night, I walked to the KeyBank Center in Buffalo for the first round of the NHL draft. I walked beside Goran Stubb, the dean of European hockey executives and scouts and asked him: “If you had first pick in the draft, who would you choose?” We knew by then that Auston Matthews was going to go first to Toronto and the comparison at the time was that he would be the next Anze Kopitar. Stubb said he would pick Jesse Puljujarvi first. We made a simple bet that night, on who would have the better career. I won the bet, just never collected … When Mike Babcock was hired to coach the Leafs in 2015, we had the kind of conversation I usually have with new coaches of teams that I cover. “How do you want to work this?” I asked Babcock. He said: “I don’t go off the record. Ever. Everything I say is on the record.” Our conversation continued: I asked him: “What are your thoughts on coaching Phil Kessel?” The Babcock answer after a slight pause: “Can we go off the record for a minute?” Postscript: Five weeks later, Kessel was traded to Pittsburgh … The difference between hockey in Toronto and hockey in Winnipeg: The Leafs missed the playoffs, had a dreadful season, fired their general manager, fired their coach, fired their media relations chief, began dismantling the roster and made a huge sign-and-trade deal. Lots of drama. The Jets missed the playoffs, had a dreadful season, kept the GM, kept the coach, kept the PR man and kept the roster pretty much in place. No drama to speak of … Did you notice that the promotional ‘Welcome to the Leafs’ video done by absentee captain Matthews did not mention McKenna’s name? Clearly he made the video before the team would share with him who their first pick would be.

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HEAR AND THERE

The Blue Jays’ struggles of this season are not unexpected. Of the past 25 teams to lose the World Series, only three made it back the following season. That’s a 12% shot. That’s what this season has become for the Jays. Expecting better than that is taking on history … How much does Vladimir Guerrero Jr., mean to the Jays? Well, put it this way: In the 22 games in which Guerrero has had two hits or more this season, the Jays have a record of 19-3, In games with Guerrero getting one or no hit, they are 20-40 … For nine years, they were part of the same sentence, the prospects 1 and 1a: Guerrero and Bo Bichette. Vladdy and Bo, they were the future, linked together as incredible talents, friends, high-end competitors, building blocks forever. Until forever was over. This is the first year Bichette and Guerrero have been apart and both seem to have suffered from their parting of the ways. Bichette, struggling with the last-place New York Mets, still has 10 home runs and 45 RBIs at the halfway point of the season. Guerrero has an inexplicable four home runs and 34 RBIs. His OPS of .714 is the lowest of his career. Bichette has an OPS of .688, second-lowest of his career … Guerrero had 11 homers at this, the halfway point, last season … The likely three Blue Jays all-stars — Ernie Clement, Louis Varland and Kazuma Okamoto — would not have been the three on my pre-season bingo card … Okamoto, who has performed considerably beyond expectations of any kind for the Jays, will almost certainly set the club record for most strikeouts in a season. He is trending towards striking out 200 times while clubbing a pile of homers: The Jays record for most strikeouts in a season is a tie between Matt Chapman and Jose Bautista at 170 … As the struggles of George Springer continue, and the Jays offence is limited, will there come a time in the second half of the season when manager John Schneider will have to start Yohendrick Pinango at designated hitter? That would be challenging. There’s no greater supporter of Springer than Schneider, but he has to think offence first. Springer turns 37 in September and his OPS has dropped from an amazing .959 last year to a not-so-amazing .673 this season. He was second in the American League a year ago, but is 60th today.

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SCENE AND HEARD

Department of Small: In the past 11 months, Golden Knights’ Kelly McCrimmon acquired Mitch Marner and Rasmus Andersson, signed free-agent goalie Carter Hart and replaced Bruce Cassidy as coach with John Tortorella. For that he received zero votes for NHL GM of the year. Zero? The GMs do the voting. Twelve different GMs got votes.. McCrimmon wasn’t one of them … There’s nothing wrong with Brian Burke going to the Hockey Hall of Fame as a builder, just so long as he goes in after Bill Daly, Don Cherry, Fran Rider, Tom Watt, Dean Lombardi, Dave King, Mike Keenan, Barry Trotz, Joel Quenneville, Rod Brind’Amour and George McPhee have been elected before him … The worst thing Burke did in his career: The light suspension of Claude Lemieux for his playoff hit from behind decapitating Kris Draper in 1996. Should have been a minimum 10 games. Burke gave him two … One game to win, who do you want in goal: Pekka Rinne or Curtis Joseph? One of them is going into the Hall of Fame. Maybe both of them should be … That was some interesting work done by the Washington Capitals over a two-day period. They picked up Jordan Kyrou from St. Louis and Alex Tuch from Buffalo. Both have scored more than 30 goals in three of the past four seasons … The acquisitions of Kyrou and Tuch make me believe that Alex Ovechkin won’t be back next season with the Caps … You can’t expect Team Canada to be perfect, or even close to it, when they’re playing World Cup games without Alphonso Davies, Ismael Kone and Moise Bombito. Yes, Canada played rather nervously at home in two of three games on Canadian soil and could have won all three. But it’s not natural to feel fully confident when you’re missing your best players … If I’m Cassidy, I’d make the Vegas Golden Knights pay me every dollar owing on my contract before I’d even look for another job. If they’re going to treat him like dirt, why not do the same in return? The GM doesn’t make that decision: The owner does.

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AND ANOTHER THING

Kawhi Leonard has been out of Toronto for seven seasons and hasn’t won a playoff round in the past five years. The move to Los Angeles hasn’t exactly gone his way, and his influence with the Clippers in acquiring Paul George and trading away Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has not exactly been enlightening. If Leonard somehow wants to return to the Raptors and they could make a deal that included moving Brandon Ingram, you’d have to consider doing it. But with all kinds of concern about what a 35-year-old Leonard would be, there is much to look at here. Leonard needed load-management babying some seven years ago. What would he need now to succeed in the NBA playoffs? … Ricky Ray threw for 1,199 yards in the first three games of the 2017 Argos season, the most to start a season in history. That’s just nine yards better than Chad Kelly has managed in the first three games this year. The Argos, by the way, won the 2017 Grey Cup … Justin Rankin, with the 3-0 Edmonton Elks, is the one CFL player you can’t take your eyes off. He is breakaway fun. The previous time Edmonton was 3-0, by the way, also in 2017 … You don’t expect this from an expansion team: Marina Mabrey scored 53 points the other night for the Toronto Tempo, which tied her for most points ever scored in a WNBA game. That’s ever. In the Raptors’ first season, the most points scored in a game was 40, by both Tracy Murray and Acie Earl. Most points in an NBA game remains 100 by Wilt Chamberlain … Why would former Raptors assistant Micah Nori agree to a one-year contract to coach the Portland Trail Blazers? Is he that desperate to be a head coach? The days of Walter Alston signing 23 straight one-year contracts to manage the Los Angeles Dodgers are long gone … The week in South Florida sports: The Heat picked up Giannis Antetokounmpo. The Panthers added Brady Tkachuk. Not just the winter weather is going to be great in Florida … Throat punches are allowed if Earl Hebner is refereeing and Stan Stasiak is throwing them, but last I checked, the wrestling legend wasn’t officiating WNBA games that Caitlin Clark was playing and being assaulted in … Happy birthday to John Elway (66), Yordan Alvarez (29), Kent Austin (63), Charles Bronfman (95), Corey Koskie (53), Bobby Hurley (55), Bobby Wagner (36), John Cusack (59), Chris Speier (76) and Sylvie Frechette (59) … And hey, whatever became of Frederik Gauthier?

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