It’s time to grind.

After a planned vacation during the quietest week on the sports calendar, I’m ready to get back to work.

We are just about one month away from the start of the NCAA football season and 45 days away from the start of the NFL season.

Every year at least one person will tell me that the NHL and NBA seasons crept up on them, but the reality is that a lot of the hard work that goes into planning betting or fantasy-related content for those leagues begins now.

In the spirit of starting off my return with a bang, I placed a 10-leg, cross-sport parlay on FanDuel on Sunday morning.

I didn’t expect a parlay with 68-to-1 odds to cash.

However, the fact that nine legs hit and the one that didn’t was the biggest upset from Sunday’s baseball slate was particularly disappointing.

Ah, it’s good to be back.

Here’s the TSN EDGE Morning Coffee for Monday July 25th, 2022.

Argos Rally To Beat Shorthanded Riders 

Sunday’s mega FanDuel parlay featured seven baseball games, two tennis matches and a CFL game that appeared to fairly lopsided on paper by kick-off.

The Saskatchewan Roughriders opened as a six-point favourite for their Week 7 match-up versus the Toronto Argonauts at FanDuel.

However, after losing several key contributors including starting quarterback Cody Fajardo due to COVID, the spread moved all the way to Toronto -2 at FanDuel by kick-off.

While the Roughriders actually led by four at the half, the Argonauts rallied and outscored Saskatchewan 17-0 in the fourth quarter for the 31-21 win.

The total soared over 45 with that high-scoring final frame.

Andrew Harris went over 10,000 rushing yards for his career with 143 rushing yards on 5.5 yards per carry.

McLeod Bethel-Thompson went 30-of-38 for 336 yards with two touchdowns and an interception in the win.

The Argonauts have won back-to-back games and have covered in three straight dating back to Week 5.

Toronto has the shortest odds to win the Grey Cup of any team from the East Division at +800, but is still the fourth choice to win it all behind the Winnipeg Blue Bombers (+165), Calgary Stampeders (+400), BC Lions (+450).

Meanwhile, anybody that bet on the Argos to go over 9.5 wins at FanDuel has to feel pretty good about their 3-2 start.

On the flip side, injuries and COVID have taken their toll on Saskatchewan following a 4-1 start. 

The Roughriders over/under was also set at 9.5 wins at FanDuel.

Anybody that bet the over is hoping they can get some key bodies back in time for their Week 9 showdown with the Lions on Friday Night Football.

Angels Avoid Sweep, Spoil 68-1 Parlay 

In the end, it was the -220 money line favourite that let me down.

The Atlanta Braves have won 59 games this season.

Unfortunately for yours truly, they couldn’t complete the three-game sweep of the Los Angeles Angels to wrap up the weekend.

After getting outscored a combined 15-3 in the first two games of the series, the Angels scored five runs in the first inning and cruised to a 9-1 win as a +190 underdog.

MLB favourites went 10-5 straight up on Sunday and are hitting at slightly above 60 per cent for the season so far.

However, on Sunday it was LA that pulled off the biggest of the five MLB upsets and ultimately cost me a big pay day at FanDuel.

NHL Futures Update

Anybody that reads this column or follows me on Twitter knows that I have the Colorado Avalanche, Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Rangers as my three picks to win the Stanley Cup.

Colorado absolutely deserves to be the favourite once again, and while I bet them to win it all again at +500, that number has already ticked down to +450 at FanDuel.

The Lightning are +1200 to win it all right now.

Reaching the Stanley Cup Final for a fourth year in a row will be extremely difficult for Tampa Bay, but if it wasn’t for so many significant injuries they would have had a much better shot to win their third Stanley Cup in a row this past season, and they still have the best roster in the Eastern Conference led by Andrei Vasilevskiy in goal.

While the Rangers added Vincent Trocheck in free agency, they still haven’t made the big splash that I was hoping to see when I wrote about them as a good value bet at +2000 to win the Stanley Cup at FanDuel before the NHL Draft. 

Still, New York is now +1700 to win the Stanley Cup and +900 to win the Eastern Conference at FanDuel. 

As it stands, I think the Rangers have a roster that is good enough to get back to the final four this season. 

I still think they could pull the trigger on a deal that could net them another top-six forward, so I’m very interested to see how things will play out for New York this offseason.

As for the big trade that I missed during my vacation last week, I wasn’t rushing to bet the Calgary Flames or Florida Panthers to win the Stanley Cup following the deal.

However, I do think it’s worth pointing out that the Flames are +300 to win the Pacific Division.

Calgary lost Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk, but added Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar. 

They also have some cap space to work with to bolster their top-six and an extra first round pick from the Panthers to use as a trade chip if they decide to go that route.

The Flames already have a quality goaltender and a solid defence core in place.

If Calgary can add one more scorer to help offset the losses they suffered up front, there’s no reason to think that the Flames can’t repeat as Pacific Division champions in 2022-23.