Toronto Maple Leafs: Round One, Game One Headlines

The time has finally come for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Following an entire regular season’s worth of inevitable buildup, Game One of the first-round rematch between the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs is set to kick off tonight at the TD Garden.

It doesn’t get much better than this.

There’s not much left to say about this matchup, really. Toronto vs Boston: Round Three has been picked apart and debated ad nauseam for the better part of the past four months, with potential line combinations, goaltending drama, and coaching decisions providing suitable content fodder all the while.

All that’s left to do, really, is play the game.

Well, after we sift through some of the pre-game headlines, that is.

Second TIme’s the Charm for Rielly-Hainsey?

Barring any last-minute changes, this appears to be the projected lineup that Mike Babcock will ice for Game One.

https://twitter.com/markhmasters/status/1115998419745746944

There’s a lot going on here. Perhaps the most noteworthy nugget is the continued presence of the Morgan Rielly – Ron Hainsey first pairing. This duo was, for lack of a better term, completely obliterated by the Bruins’ attack in their first-round matchup from last year, with Hainsey, in particular, proving to be completely inept at shutting down the most lethal line in hockey.

Over the course of that seven-game series, Hainsey put forth a putrid 40% CF%/60 at 5v5, with an even worse -11.68 Rel CF%, per Corsica, to demonstrate just how abysmal the veteran was at driving possession compared to those around him.

The Maple Leafs were out-chanced a whopping 65 to 45 at even strength with Hainsey on the ice. And even while facing of such an onslaught, Hainsey actually benefited from a large dose of puck luck, as the veteran’s PDO sat at an unsustainably high 104.7.

Babcock must have a lot of faith in Hainsey, who is now one year older and whose body now carries 81 more games of mileage, to rebound from his career-worst effort.

If he can’t, the coach must show a willingness to alter his pairings on the fly.

The Fourth Line’s Usage

With all of Auston Matthews, John Tavares, and Nazem Kadri healthy and accounted for, Babcock’s centre corps now features two superstars and a top-six staple down the middle. The line-matching possibilities are endless, particularly for a coach who often gets lost in the tit-for-tat deployment of his personnel.

Therefore, it will be increasingly interesting to track just how big of a role the fourth line happens to play right from the get-go, if they’re even given one at all.

The postseason is an entirely different animal. The pace is faster, the hits are harder, and the margin for error is as tight as it gets. Frederik Gauthier, on the other hand, has declined to ever show a proclivity for displaying those attributes. His presence in the postseason lineup, while otherwise expected, still exists as a potential weakness of Toronto’s which Boston can exploit.

In a series as tight as this one, any weakness can be fatal.

So, this poses some questions. If Babcock is intent on running Matthews, Tavares, and Kadri for 20 minutes each, the Achilles heel at the bottom of the lineup won’t be a problem. Then again, it then begs the question of what purpose opting to dress Gauthier ultimately serves, and whether or not sitting him in favour of icing seven defencemen would be a better path to take.

Regardless, the role of the fourth line will be an under-the-radar topic to track.

Puck drops at 7:00 PM.

Stats courtesy of NaturalStatTrick.com & Corsica.Hockey