John Tavares scoring an OT winner in Tampa —where have I seen that before?

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend! I know I did, especially after seeing the Leafs come back from the dead on Saturday night at Amalie Arena. Recently, they’ve had a lot of success in that barn, so cheers to that continuing down the road.

We kicked off the Monday edition of Leafs Morning Take by discussing Justin Holl’s hot start in Detroit —weirdly enough. Furthermore, we tied that into a Leafs conversation. Is the change of scenery narrative overplayed? Underplayed? I polled Jay Rosehill about that before we got into the meat of things from over the weekend.

So, Matthew Knies scored twice to erase the two goal deficit in the third before John Tavares ended it in OT. Presented by DoorDash, The Appetizer was an all-encompassing game recap. Among the topics: Max Domi found his legs, the Leafs dominated OT, and obviously, we had to discuss the team’s consistency issues early on. It’s been frustrating to see.

Thanks to Wendy’s, we dove head first into the Ilya Samsonov situation. The Russian netminder got the hook after surrendering three goals on four shots. He has not been good. That said, Rosey and I agree that it’s way too early to turn on this guy. It’s a long season and the Leafs will need him. Meantime, we touched on Joseph Woll and how he’s earned the uptick in playing time. We’re pumped to see how does over the next little while.

Also, unbelievably, the Leafs have already hit the five-game mark of the season. With that in mind, we gave out some letter grades on the team’s start so far. Full disclosure: Jay Rosehill’s an easy marker.

Join us on Tuesday at 11 AM ET as we preview Toronto’s third of five in a row on the road. To help break down the Leafs/Caps matchup, Devante Smith-Pelly, who won the Stanley Cup with Washington in 2018, will drop by. We love DEVO!