Toronto Maple Leafs: 5 Playoff Predictions For Round 1 vs. Boston

The Toronto Maple Leafs will face the Boston Bruins in the first round of this year’s NHL Playoffs.

For the second year in a row, the Toronto Maple Leafs will hit the road in round one to play against the Bruins, who won last year in seven games.

As everyone remembers, the Leafs entered the third period with a one goal lead – a lead which is safe in the NHL nearly 90% of time.  They then proceeded to completely collapse, and memories of 2013 were swirling as they allowed four third period goals to lose the game and the series.

Afterwards, people were hyper-critical of Jake Gardiner, to the point of it being offensive.  Gardiner didn’t have his best game, but then again, neither did Frederick Andersen, Mitch Marner or Auston Matthews.

This year should be different.  The Toronto Maple Leafs have added John Tavares and Jake Muzzin, giving them one of, if not the best roster in the NHL on paper.

But will it translate to victory?

Inspired by my truly awful regular season predictions, I now present to you 5 predictions for the first round.

Auston Matthews Destroys the Bruins

Last year the Bruins held Auston Matthews to one goal in seven games.

Matthews wasn’t just held to a single goal, he only had two points.  This lead to a lot of terrible analysis like “Matthews played poorly,” and “Matthews didn’t show up,” etc.

99.999% of “analysis” ends up just being based on point totals, and it is generally impossible to convince people that a player known for scoring that didn’t score played well.

I’ll try again though.

Despite playing most of his minutes against Boston’s top defensive pairing of Zdeno Chara and Charlie MacAvoy, and frequently facing the top line in the NHL, Matthews still ended up over 50% possession for the series.

Despite taking on all of Boston’s best players whenever it was possible for them to get their preferred matchup, Matthews still had positive differentials in shot-attempts, shots, and scoring chances.

But when he was on the ice, the Leafs were outscored 4-8. Matthews’ on-ice shooting percentage last playoffs was 6% compared to the 10% that it usually is.  His goalie had a save percentage of 85% when Matthews was on the ice.  (All stats for this article naturalstattrick.com).

And that explains the bad stats.  Normally, Matthews can expect an on-ice shooting percentage in the 9-12 percent range, and a save-percentage of around 91%.

This year, the Bruins won’t get so lucky.  Matthews will be aware of his unfair reputation as a playoff non-performer, score about two goals per game and single-handedly beat the Bruins.

Tampa Loses

The Tampa Bay Lightning just finished one of the best seasons in NHL history.

They finished an insane 21 points ahead of both the Calgary Flames and the Boston Bruins, who tied for second.

The Lightning have a deep roster, a great blue line and a goalie who is among the best in the NHL.

But they are going to lose.

Nothing says they should lose.  The Blue Jackets barely scraped into the playoffs, the Lightning are basically everyone’s pick to win the Stanley Cup and everything is going their way.

But hockey is funny, and I just figure a team that found a way to almost go unbeaten using their back-up goalie for a large stretch of the season, and which is the only team in hockey to shoot over 20% on the PP is due for some struggles.

There is no rational reason to pick Columbus, but Bobrovsky and Panarin are two of the best players in the world and their roster should probably make them better than the eight seed.

I’m calling the upset.

Toronto Maple Leafs Barely Use 4th Line Centre

The Toronto Maple Leafs biggest advantage over Boston is their incredible depth down the middle.  Nazem Kadri could be the top centre on an OK team. He could be the #2 man on a contender.

On the Leafs, he’s #3 behind two of the five best centres in the world.  Matthews and Tavares create a combo matched only by Malkin/Crosby. The fact that the Leafs then follow that up with Kadri is just an embarrassment of riches.

The Leafs will have almost no reason to play their fourth line centre, and unless there’s a blow-out, I’d expect that we barely see Freddie Gauthier at even-strength.

The Leafs will grind down any team over seven games with their strength down the middle, and that is why I believe they will win the Stanley Cup.

Whichever one of Tavares or Matthews draws the easier matchup, look for them to have a huge series.  But Kadri is the guy to watch, because it appears he’s going to skate with William Nylander on a completely bonkers third line, that is pretty much a first line quality unit.

The Bruins, or anyone, can’t hope to match it.

Freddie Finds His Game

Freddie Andersen has been pretty shaky lately.

But he still finished the season with 36 wins and an excellent .917 save percentage.  After having five shut-outs last year, he strangely only had one this year.

But the Toronto Maple Leafs allow a ton of shots, and Andersen is almost always there to shut the door.  He has allowed the Leafs to play a game that is more offense than defense, and his numbers, when contextualized for the kind of team in front of him, are top of the league.

Frederik Andersen is a legitimate choice for the Vezina Trophy – although he’ll most likely not win it.

My prediction is that Andersen overcomes his recent struggles to become the best goalie in this year’s playoffs.  He will be nearly unbeatable as the Toronto Maple Leafs down the Boston Bruins in five games.

Yes, five games.

To recap: Matthews is a scoring monster, Babcock barely plays his fourth line, the Lightning lose, the Leafs go up 2-0, and Freddie Andersen is nearly unbeatable.

You might call them fantasies, I call them predictions, and two weeks from now, we’ll be forced to call them reality.