The Toronto Maple Leafs and Ottawa Senators reinvigorated the Battle of Ontario over the last few seasons.
Reinvigorated may be too strong of a word, actually, because Ottawa hasn't made the playoffs while the Toronto Maple Leafs have been a top contender, but it's clearly getting better.
In those years, the Senators have become more competitive in their quest to clinch a playoff spot. Their was a lot of hope for the Senators last season, but a tough Atlantic division and a couple of horrible losing streaks kept them out of the playoffs for the seventh straight season.
However, that is not due to the Toronto Maple Leafs as they struggled against the Senators last season.
Toronto lost three of their four regular season games against Ottawa, all that were two or more goal deficits.
With the changes both Toronto and Ottawa made this off-season, let us take a look at how the two teams matchup in this coming 2024-25 season.
Maple Leafs vs Senators: Top 6 Forwards
The Toronto Maple Leafs first of three games against the Senators will be at home on Tuesday, November 12th, 2024. They will then play two Hockey Night in Canada games in 2025, on January 25th in Ottawa and March 15th in Toronto.
The Maple Leafs and Senators did not make any significant changes, if any, to their top 6 yet this off-season.
According to Daily Faceoff, the Maple Leafs predicted line combinations to start the season are Knies-Matthews-Marner and McMann-Tavares-Nylander. As of this point in the offseason, it will be the same six players on the top lines as those used to end the 2023-24 regular season.
Same for the Ottawa Senators who's predicted top 6 is Tkachuk-Stutzle-Giroux and Norris-Pinto-Batherson.
Except this year, Ottawa will have Pinto for a full season after last season's 41-game suspension for violating NHL gambling rules.
The Maple Leafs have the edge on line one with Rocket Richard winner Auston Matthews and one of the best playmakers in the league, Mitch Marner. Tim Stutzle and Brady Tkachuk are both excellent players but neither come close to that of Auston Matthews.
Claude Giroux is also bound to regress as he is 36 years of age and has lost his speed. He is still a great playmaker and can contribute on both the power play and penalty kill, but his second half of the 2023-24 season showed that it will be hard for him to be a 60-70-point player again.
Matthew Knies on the other hand has the potential to reach new heights this season. After an underwhelming rookies year with 15 goals and 20 assists, Knies is pencilled in to be a big contributor this upcoming season.
His hard forechecking and flashes of brilliance with the puck will hopefully come more frequently this season, as he should be playing in the top 6 all season long.
As for line two, I'd say the Leafs have the edge again. William Nylander was one of the best wingers in the NHL last year, and you can not discredit that. Alongside John Tavares, who is still one of the best 2Cs in the league and a full season of Bobby McMann, this line will be lethal to start in the offensive zone.
The Senators, may not have someone of the same caliber as William Nylander, the youth of Norris, Pinto and Batherson is scary.
Batherson and Norris are more proven than Pinto, as they have both scored at top 6 rates in the past couple of seasons. Norris is coming off of two injury riddled seasons so he'll have to stay healthy in order for this line to compete with the second line of the Maple Leafs.
If these players play up to their potential they will give the Maple Leafs some trouble.