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*sigh* Good morning, friend. The sadne s you see in my eyes this morning is due to hockey officially being over and me losing my entire sense of purpose. Seriously, after three months of non-stop playoff hockey, what am I supposed to do now? This sucks. And the worst part of all? We don't know exactly when it'll be back or what it will look like (though it seems ).Luckily, I can try to drown my sorrows in the abundance of other action Andrew Cashner Jersey still going on, including playoff baseball -- which starts today -- and the Finals -- which start tomorrow. And of course we have football, too. So I gue s I should stop sulking and just hunker down to focus on getting to chat with you every morning. I'm going to mi s hockey a lot, but life could certainly be worse. You know what they say: Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened despite an ongoing national pandemic. What you need to know1. , cruise to win over We had one heck of a marquee Monday Night Football matchup as two of the AFC's top teams and most exciting quarterbacks went head-to-head. Or at least that's what we thought we were getting with the Chiefs-Ravens matchup last night, but it wasn't quite the shootout that most expected.Instead, against 's Ravens. Mahomes became , needing only 34 games to do it (lol come on... that's insane)The Chiefs quarterback threw for 385 yards and four touchdowns, and he added another on the ground for good measureKansas City's defense kept a lid on Jackson, who Tim Beckham Jersey was virtually a non-factor through the air. He had just 97 pa sing yards and one touchdown, though he did add 83 yards on the groundThe reigning champion Chiefs entered the night as underdogs and I sure hope you joined me in jumping on the value there. I say you're a fool if you don't take KC at plus-money whenever you can get it. Don't you know better than to bet against Mahomes at this point?This game felt like a real slice of humble pie for the Ravens and a huge statement for the Chiefs, who aren't quite ready to give up that AFC throne just yet. Kansas City is gonna have to have a quick turnaround this week, as they've got another tough matchup against the on Sunday. The Ravens will have a Sunday date against the Washington Football Team, so hopefully they use the unofficial bye week to get their bearings set after this tough lo s. 2. Tampa Bay Lightning get ultimate redemption, win 2020 Stanley Cup As we creep toward October, this is normally the time we'd be gearing up for the start of hockey season. Instead, with the wonky COVID-19 timeline that's been cast upon us, the season actually just came to an end last night -- a whole 363 days after the season started. The Tampa Bay Lightning are the lone survivors in the NHL bubble and . The Lightning beat the Stars, 2-0, in Game 6, winning the series 4-2It's their second Stanley Cup in franchise history (also won in 2004)Tampa Bay becomes the third team to win the Stanley Cup after getting swept in the first round the previous year. Defenseman Victor Hedman (10 goals, 12 a sists)It's been a long, strange road for the Lightning to get to this point. They'd basically become a league punching bag due to constantly coming up short in the postseason of late, so this is quite the redemption story. That's especially true after Tampa had a historically great regular season last year only to choke it away and get swept Dylan Bundy Jersey in the first round by a No. 8 seed.As strange as it might seem, the University of Virginia gets some credit for this Cup win:Kevin Shattenkirk:Hey, why not?!And for as strange as the timing and circumstances were, the win in the bubble was no fluke and . It's very hard to argue against the Lightning being the best team in the league, and it's almost impo sible to argue against them being the best team in the bubble. In a Stanley Cup tournament that was far from ordinary, we can find some comfort and normalcy in the idea that the best team got to hoist the Cup to finally close out the season. Also, a big shoutout to the NHL for pulling this thing off as smoothly as they did. Three months in the bubble and not a single positive coronavirus test. That's pretty incredible. 3. Clippers fire Doc Rivers, but does that solve their playoff problems? The NBA Finals will get underway tomorrow and you know who won't be involved? The Los Angeles Clippers. That's because the Clippers choked away a 3-1 series lead against the Denver Nuggets in the second round this year, in case you forgot.As it turns out, that disappointing fate for the Clips has cost Doc Rivers his job. The team announced yesterday that , parting ways with the coach who has been on their sidelines since 2013. Rivers: There's no question that this Clippers season turned out to be a disappointment and that Rivers had a role in that: this is the third time one of his teams has blown a 3-1 series lead. But this begs the question: Our James Herbert doesn't seem to think so.Herbert:What we do know for sure at this point is that the Clippers are now in the market for a new head coach to help carry this thing through, and We also know that Rivers is now a free agent and he's unlikely to be out of work long if he wants to continue coaching. There are a few teams that have reportedly already reached out to Doc, and our Sam Quinn has put together In addition to Hanser Alberto Jersey being a highly respected coach, Rivers also has one of the best personalities in the game, so it actually wouldn't be the worst or most surprising thing if he decided to take a year off and do some work as an analyst before jumping back into the coaching waters. 4. Our expert MLB Zach Britton Jersey Wild Card picks Happy playoff baseball season, my friend. MLB's Wild Card round gets underway today and we've got a whole lot of action on our plate this week. The expanded postseason picture means we've got more games to enjoy; there are four AL games in action today but things will get really spicy tomorrow with a full slate of EIGHT games. The start times for those eight games are Noon, 1 p.m., 2 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 5 p.m., 7 p.m. and 10 p.m.I mean, come on! Holy moly that's gonna be fun. But before we officially usher in playoff baseball later today, . Our MLB crew made selections for each of the eight series (which will all be best-of-three) and here are a couple of notable takeaways:The Rays, Twins, Dodgers and Padres were all unanimous picks to win their seriesMike Axisa wasn't afraid to go against the grain: He has the Indians beating the Yankees, the A's over the White Sox and the Marlins over the CubsYou know 2020 is a weird year when everyone is believing in the Twins in the playoffs. That's the same Twins that have lost