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Toronto Maple Leafs Will Meet the Blue Jackets in the Qualifier Round

By Joseph Zita

TORONTO, ON - OCTOBER 21: Seth Jones #3 of the Columbus Blue Jackets defends against the Toronto Maple Leafs during an NHL game at Scotiabank Arena on October 21, 2019 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Blue Jackets defeated the Maple Leafs 4-3 in overtime. (Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images)
TORONTO, ON - OCTOBER 21: Seth Jones #3 of the Columbus Blue Jackets defends against the Toronto Maple Leafs during an NHL game at Scotiabank Arena on October 21, 2019 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Blue Jackets defeated the Maple Leafs 4-3 in overtime. (Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images) /
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The NHL announced its return to play strategy yesterday, and the Toronto Maple Leafs will play the Columbus Blue Jackets.

It is official, if everything goes as planned we will be seeing NHL playoff hockey in about a month and a half, and the Toronto Maple Leafs will be playing for a chance to make playoffs.

Since the season was put on pause, some teams didn’t play the same amount of games as other teams, so the standings were adjusted by point percentage instead.

The new standings have the Toronto Maple Leafs in eighth place and will match up against the Columbus Blue Jacket who sit in ninth place.

Maple Leafs vs Blue Jackets in Qualifier Round

It is now official that the Toronto Maple Leafs will play the Columbus Blue Jackets in the qualifier round. This round will be a best-of-5 series (first to three wins) and the winner of this series will officially qualify for the 2020 NHL playoffs.

Their opponent after this series is still unknown but it will be one of either, the Boston Bruins, Tampa Bay Lightning, Washington Capitals, or Philadelphia Flyers. These teams will play a round robin to determine seeding.

Here is how the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Columbus Blue Jackets matched up against each other this season…(Stats from Hockey-Reference.com)

TOR: 1-0-1 – 3.5 GF – 2.5 GA – 28% PP – 80% PK

CBJ: 1-1-0 – 2.5 GF – 3.5 GA – 20% PP – 72% PK

No one should be taking the Columbus Blue Jackets lightly, as in the NHL, any team can beat any other team at anytime.  The Blue Jackets upset Tampa Bay last year in the first round, then lost Bobrovsky, Duchene, Panarin, and Dzingel last offseason and surprised a lot of people with a 33-22-15 record this season, on the back of the 5th best 5v5 save percentage in the NHL.

They aren’t a very deep team upfront but they do have one of the best defense cores in the NHL, and we can’t forget about their goaltending duo which is taking the NHL by storm in the two 26 year olds Elvis Merzlikins, and Jonas Korpisalo.

My Prediction for who Wins

All in all it will be a good series between these two teams. The Toronto Maple Leafs will have Jake Muzzin and Ilya Mikheyev back from injury, and the Columbus Blue Jackets will more than likely have a handful of their injured players back too.

With the qualifier round being a best-of-5 series I can see the Toronto Maple Leafs winning in four games, at most maybe even five games.

Although the Toronto Maple Leafs do have the better team on paper and they should come away with a series win, this Columbus team is resilient and won’t back down from anything, they play a heavy game and it is going to be a tough series.

No matter who wins, it will be exciting to finally watch some hockey.

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