Toronto Maple Leafs: Round 1 Eastern Conference NHL Playoff Predictions

The Toronto Maple Leafs finished a solid fourth overall and will begin the playoffs against Tampa Bay.

Though the Toronto Maple Leafs were able to clinch home-ice advantage, the reward of a date with the back-to-back Stanley Cup champions for a 54 win, 115 franchise record season is a bit of a joke, but what can you do?

The first round of the NHL playoffs is the best time of the season, as there is usually double-headers every night for two weeks.

With the amount of good teams in the NHL being disproportionally allocated to the Eastern Conference this season, there are some very interesting matchups, and it’s not just the Leafs who were screwed over by the NHL’s divisional seeding.

This is the first time ever that even the eigth seed has 100 points, so the Panthers, who won the President’s Trophy as the NHL’s best team, don’t even really get an easy matchup – they get the Washington Capitals.

And Carolina’s reward of the 107 point Boston Bruins seems as preposterous as the Leafs haveing to face Tampa.

Though this means that great teams will be eliminated in the first round, it also means we are guaranteed some amazing series.  On with the predictions.

Florida Panthers vs Washington Capitals

The Panthers finished with 22 more points than Washington, on their way to the best season in their franchises history.

Ovechkin, at age 36, had another 50 goal season, which is incredible.  For Florida, Alexander Barkov almost hit 40 goals, while Jon Huberdeau will get some MVP votes for his career year.

All together, the Panthers are a deep team with a ton of offensive skill, and they got even better at the trade deadline when they picked up Claude Giroux.

Florida is the NHL’s second best 5v5 team, they are super deep, and they have performed well above their goaltending (ranked 16th) and are therefore a legit team, and not just a good team over achieving due to a goalie.

Even though Bobrovsky can’t be  trusted, the Panthers only need him to be OK, and that’s likely to happen.

The only real chance the Capitals have here is that they take advantage of the weak Florida blue-line and get lucky enough that the Panther’s offense goes cold.

Aaron Ekblad could return for game one, but that remains TBD.  He’s missed a quarter of  a season, however, so who knows how good he’ll be.

The Panthers have Mackenzie Weeger and Gustav Forsling, who are good.  They also have Radko Gudas, Ben Chiarot and Brandon Montour who are all exposable by fast forwards.

Still, this should not be an issue for Florida, their team is far superior and they will win in five games.

New York vs Pittsburgh

For most of the season, the Rangers were seen as a bad 5v5 team, who had stupidly given away Pavel Buchnevich  for nothing, whose recent draft picks were all failing to develop, but who being were propped up by one of the best goalie seasons in recent history.

They may have improved slightly as the year went on, but they are the 24th best 5v5 team when you don’t account for goalies.

The Penguins, on the other hand, have Sidney Crosby, Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin, still going strong after all these years.

Malkin is still better than 93% of players, according to the JFresh cards.  Crosby 95%.

The Penguins having one last awesome run in them would be the coolest thing possible, outside of a long Toronto Maple Leafs run, and I think we’re going to see one.

The Rangers are a fun team that has a bright future, but for now I am sticking with the past.

The Penguins might have an injured goalie, but they have an underrated and very solid blue line (Matheson, Marino, Dumoulin) and two aging but still great superstars.

I predict they will win in six games.

Toronto Maple Leafs vs Tampa Bay Lightning

The Toronto Maple Leafs  were lucky to avoid Boston, in my opinion.

While the Tampa Bay Lightning have won two straight Stanley Cups, the Bruins are the NHL’s best 5v5 team.  Tampa has also played a tone of hockey in the last two seasons, doesn’t appear to be too hungry, and they have seemed beatable this season. (stats naturalstattrick.com).

The Leafs, on the other hand, cannot possibly be hungrier.

I predict that the Leafs stars will put this team on their back and play out of their minds.

I just don’t think that John Tavares, Auston Matthews or Mitch Marner want to have their careers overshadowed by an inability to perform when it counts, and that therefore you will see a superhuman effort from them.

This is the year for the Leafs – they’re coming off the momentum of a franchise record, their goalie is playing for a contract, they have so many hungry players, their mix of veterans and young players, of grit and skill is all ideal.

They are the culmination of everything we’ve watched for five years and I believe they are going to come out flying and never look back.

Ultimately, Jack Campbell has never let the Leafs down yet, and with Matthews and Marner, they figure to have the best players in this series. Additionally, I predict the real value of adding Mark Giordano will become apparent, and I would look for him to take on more and more of the duties of a number-one defenseman as the playoffs go on.

The Toronto Maple Leafs will finally find playoff success, I am predicting the Leafs in five games.