The Boston Bruins won’t make the mistake of saying anything disrespectful about the Toronto Maple Leafs because they are far too smart for that kind of hockey hubris ahead of a first-round playoff series against their arch-divisional rivals.
Certainly, the Black and Gold go into the series confident after taking all four meetings during the regular season and outscoring the Leafs by a 14-7 margin while also beating them in each of the last three postseason head-to-heads dating back to 2013’s Game 7 comeback. They also know that the Maple Leafs have essentially replaced the Montreal Canadiens as their most heated, hated rivals in the NHL, and that means literally anything could happen over the course of seven playoff games between the two hockey clubs taking place over the next two weeks.
"Here we go again,” said Charlie McAvoy with a big smile on his face. “It's gonna be fun. It's always a good series when we play these guys. They're obviously an outstanding franchise and there's a lot of history between the two of us. It's just always really exciting. This is what you play for.
“[The Leafs have] a lot of skill and a lot of compete. It will be a great challenge for us and we’re really looking forward to it.”
It’s very clearly two different kinds of hockey teams with vastly different strengths and weaknesses, so no better time to go through the head-to-head matchup while gauging who ultimately has the advantage in the showdown.
Forwards: Obviously, the Maple Leafs have the star power. Auston Matthews nearly had 70 goals, Mitch Marner is the somewhat underrated playmaker and William Nylander finished with 40 goals and 98 points this season. That doesn’t even count the steadiness of John Tavares, or what new additions like Max Domi, Tyler Bertuzzi and Calle Jarnkrok have brought in terms of grit to a Leafs team that can always use more of that. But the stud Toronto players also aren’t their normally robust selves in the playoffs and that’s where some of the Leafs issues clearly stem from.
Then there’s the Bruins with David Pastrnak, who has routinely torched Toronto over the course of his career whether it’s the regular season or the playoffs. He’s got seven goals and 19 points in 14 career playoff games against the Leafs. That’s undeniable dominance. And he’ll have Brad Marchand leading the offense with Pavel Zacha, Charlie Coyle, Trent Frederic, Morgan Geekie and Danton Heinen all coming off very strong seasons. So it’s closer than you think this category might be, but we’ll still give it to a Leafs team that finished second in the NHL with 3.63 goals per game this season.
Edge: Toronto.
Defense: This is where it starts to get a little rough for the Maple Leafs. Clearly there are still questions for Hampus Lindholm to answer in the playoffs after a rough series against the Panthers, and zero points in 11 Stanley Cup playoff games for the Black and Gold over the last two postseasons. But the Maple Leafs really don’t have anybody that’s as good all-around at the defensemen position as McAvoy and Lindholm have been for the Bruins when they are at the top of their collective games. And we saw the Bruins pair those two together in the latter part of the regular season, which could really give the B’s an intriguing shutdown matchup if they choose to deploy it.
Morgan Rielly is a solid puck-moving defenseman and Jake McCabe has proven to be a solid, rugged blueliner as well. But Mark Giordano is playing like a 40-year-old defenseman these days, and the Leafs' defense corps is pretty “meh” as a group even after adding Joel Edmundson and Ilya Lyubushkin at the deadline. The defense is definitely a big part of the reason they finished in the bottom third of the NHL defensively and could very well be a sore spot in the playoffs for Toronto. Someday the Maple Leafs might prioritize a strong defense, but it isn’t this year.
Edge: Boston.
Goaltending: The Bruins know who is going to be starting in net for them in Game 1, but nobody else does at this point. No matter who it is, that goalie is better at stopping pucks than anybody the Maple Leafs could throw between the pipes these days. The regular season battles between the two teams tell the story as Toronto had a .891 save percentage and the B’s netminders had a .949 save percentage in those four regular season meetings. Jeremy Swayman was 3-0-0 with a 1.20 GAA and a .951 save percentage in his three starts against the Maple Leafs and dominated them in his breakout All-Star season. Still, it may be Linus Ullmark getting the nod again in Game 1 after some very strong play down the stretch after he remained with Boston following the trade deadline.
Ilya Samsonov has experienced a very up-and-down season and Joseph Woll slumped at the end of the year after suffering a high ankle sprain during the season. This looks like the most lopsided category in the head-to-head matchup with the Bruins clearly holding a massive edge as long as Boston’s goalies perform in the playoffs like they did during the regular season (which they have not to this point in their B’s careers). That’s the only rub, but they have yet to prove they can do it in the postseason.
Edge: Boston.
Special Teams: The Leafs finished seventh in the NHL with a 24 percent power play success rate, but finished in the bottom third of the league with a 76.9 percent kill rate. The Bruins, on the other hand, were middle of the road with a power play that struggled at the end of the season, and finished tied with the Panthers for sixth in the NHL with penalty kill that was successful 82.5 percent of the time. So the widest disparity is in the two penalty kill units and it will be interesting to see if the Bruins can exploit that with a top PP unit that’s now got Kevin Shattenkirk working the controls at the point on the man advantage. That combo showed a spark at the very end of the regular season. If they can exploit that Toronto PK, it could be a key advantage for them particularly if Pastrnak really gets going with the goal-scoring. If any unit could take over the series, though, it’s probably the Maple Leafs power play.
Edge: Toronto in a very slight way.
Coaching/Intangibles: Sheldon Keefe is very clearly on the hot seat if the Maple Leafs go out again with another first-round disappointment. Rightfully so if he can’t push the right buttons and pull the right levels to get the Leafs over the top after years of postseason struggles. Jim Montgomery won the Jack Adams Award last season as the NHL’s best coach and he arguably did an even better job this season as he had to motivate, teach and – at times – chastise in a way that he simply didn’t with last season’s group. Still, Montgomery has some playoff questions to answer after some missteps during last spring’s postseason series against the Panthers. It will also be interesting to see how adding the ultimate Stanley Cup lucky charm in Pat Maroon will work out for the Black and Gold. The biggest intangible with these two groups, though, is very clearly the psychological and playoff experience advantages that the Bruins hold over the Maple Leafs. The Bruins have tormented the Maple Leafs and the four meetings during the regular season did nothing to dissuade anybody from what they think is going to happen in the first round. Could this be the year when the Maple Leafs finally reverse the stranglehold that the Bruins have had on them in the postseason? Maybe so, but we’ll have to see it to believe it.
Edge: Bruins.
Prediction: Bruins win again in six games instead of the customary seven against the Maple Leafs.