Battle of Ontario Preview 2024-25
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.
Bottom 6 Forwards:
Personally, I despise the Maple Leafs bottom 6. Apart from Domi and Robertson - if he ends up signing an extension - the Maple Leafs have massive problems in the bottom of their line up.
Calle Jarnkrok has proven to be ineffective come playoff time, with just one goal in 18 playoff games with Toronto. On top of that, he makes $2.1 million a year and does not bring what the Maple Leafs need in the bottom 6.
David Kampf is a great defensive fourth line centre but your fourth line centre should not be making $2.4 million dollars. They should try and move on from him and see if Pontus Holmberg can take on that role.
Ryan Reaves and Connor Dewar are both underwhelming and should be replaced as well, if possible.
As for the Senators bottom 6, they made some changes this offseason. They signed David Perron, Michael Amadio and former Maple Leaf, Noah Gregor to help bolster their bottom 6.
Perron-Greig-Amadio is a good third line and every player seems to bring a different element.
Greig is a hard checking centre, who is reliable on both sides of the puck, scoring 26 points last season in a reduced role. He is also nasty to play against for those who remember the Ridly Greig, Morgan Rielly incident from last season.
He is not afraid to be a pest out on the ice.
David Perron has been around the league for over a decade now and has been effective on every team he's played for. He's a middle 6 scoring winger who brings a veteran presence and knows what it takes to win Lord Stanley.
The Maple Leafs were rumored to be interested in him before he signed in Ottawa.
Amadio just spent the last two seasons in Vegas where he won a Stanley cup and contributed 27 points in both seasons. Another hardworking winger that will make Ottawa's bottom 6 tough to play against.
I'd would much rather Ottawa's third line over Toronto's.
As for the fourth line in Ottawa, Gregor will play alongside Ostapchuk and Zach MacEwen. A typical NHL fourth line that will play limited minutes and try to hit everything that moves.
Here, I would give the edge to Maple Leafs, as Kampf has proven he can play against tougher matchups, not sure Ottawa's fourth line will be playing against many top lines.
Defencemen
The Toronto Maple Leafs made upgrades to their blueline this offseason while the Senators did the opposite.
Toronto brought in Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman Larson to replace Ilya Lybushkin and Joel Edmunsson.
While Ottawa made one of the most head scratching trades in recent NHL history and moved Jakob Chychrun to the Washington Capitals for Nick Jensen and a draft pick.
On top of that, they decided not to qualify Erik Brannstrom who, back in 2019, was a big piece in the return for Mark Stone.
Brannstrom has a lot of offensive upside but was unable to gain trust defensively from the coaching staff in Ottawa, which led to his departure.
Despite those two loses on the back end for Ottawa, they still have Thomas Chabot, Jake Sanderson and Artem Zub who were all standout pieces of that blue line last season.
Thomas Chabot is their number one defenceman when healthy and is the best defenceman out of both team's d-cores.
When fully healthy he is able to play 26 minutes a night and is resonsible with the puck on his stick, something that is uncommon for a defenceman that brings a lot of offence. In 51 games he had 30 points and an on ice expected goals percentage of 58.2%.
Jake Sanderson had a good sophmore campaign, picking up Chabot's minutes when he was injured and proved he could matchup against the top lines in the league, while still providing offence.
Sanderson taking that next step is part of the reason Ottawa felt they could move Chychrun due to Chabot and Sanderson playing in front of him.
As for the right side of Ottawa's D-core Artem Zub, Nick Jensen, and Jakob Bernard Docker are not the flashiest players, but all play great defensively and complement, those on the left side of the blue line.
The Maple Leafs right side is much stronger going into the 2024-25 season. Tanev, Liljegren and McCabe alongside Rielly, Ekman Larson and Benoit are more balanced than we've seen in the past.
Rielly is not a number one defenceman like Chabot but he has been a great 1B or 2A for Toronto for many years.
Adding Chris Tanev to play alongside of him, will hopefully allow Rielly to get back to his 2021-22 self where he scored 68 points. Tanev is a warrior and will block, hit and move anything that stands in between the player with the puck and his own goalie. However, with this style of play comes a lot of injury concern.
Tanev has only played one full 82 game season in his career and it was in 2021-22. Hopefully with the help of the Maple Leafs training staff they can keep Tanev healthy for the majority of the season.
The second pairing of Benoit and McCabe is great and has the potential to be better with it being Benoit's second full season with the Maple Leafs. A pairing that can match up against other teams' top lines and could even be changed situationally to have McCabe play with Tanev, to make an all defensive line late in the game while defending a lead.
The third pairing of Oliver Ekman Larsson and Liljegren will be interesting as Liljegren has yet to become the defenceman the Maple Leafs hoped he would be.
He was one of two solid puck movers on the blue line last year but has been unable to elevate his game to earn a top 4 role. Maybe Berube will be able to deploy him appropriately as him and Keefe didn't seem to ever mesh.
Oliver Ekman Larsson just won the Stanley Cup with the Florida Panthers a few weeks ago and played a third pairing role there.
He is not the defenceman that he once was in Arizona but he is certainly an upgrade from Edmundson and Lyubushkin. If given the opportunity, he can run the 2nd powerplay over Liljegren.
The Maple Leafs blueline is deeper than the Senators, but the Senators have arguebly two better defencemen than Morgan Rielly, in Thomas Chabot and Jake Sanderson.
Still, I feel that with the additions of Tanev and Ekman Larsson for Toronto and the subtraction of Chychrun for Ottawa, the Maple Leafs have the more well rounded blue line.
Goalies
The Maple Leafs goaltending situation is a question mark, to say the least.
Joseph Woll is a great goalie when he can stay healthy but that is a big if. His most games played in one season was this past season, 2023-24. He played 25 games posting a .907 SV% and 2.94 GAA.
Anthony Stolarz has been a great back up over the past couple of seasons and just won a Stanley Cup with the Florida Panthers.
He has never played more than 28 games in a regular season and only came in, in relief of Sergei Bobrovskiy once in this seasons Stanley Cup playoffs.
He had great numbers as a back up with a .925 SV% and 2.03 GAA. Those numbers are most likley not sustainable if he were to become the starter this season, but nonetheless he has upside to be a starting goalie in the NHL.
This is where Ottawa is miles ahead of Toronto.
Prior to the 2024 NHL Entry Draft the Ottawa Senators acquired Linus Ullmark from the Boston Bruins, for what seemed like pennies on the dollar. Boston has run a platoon system with Swayman and Ullmark for the last couple of years and they finally decided that it was time to make Swayman the number one goalie.
Ullmark won the Vezina trophy in 2023 with a 1.98 GAA and .938 SV%. Those numbers regressed in 2023-24 but he was still amongst the most consistent and best goalies in the league.
In 40 games he had a 2.57 GAA and .915 which was significantly better than either of Maple Leafs starts last season.
The question is if Ullmark can carry the load of 50 plus games because Anton Forsberg is not a platoon goalie, and should be the back up.
Whether they decide to limit Ullmark’s playing time or not, the Vezina trophy and years of experience in Buffalo and Boston trumps anything that Woll and Stolarz brings.
Final Verdict
The Maple Leafs are a contender and the Senators are still competing to get into the playoffs.
Maple Leafs have the edge up front with star forwards like Matthews, Marner and Nylander.
Although Ottawa has Chabot and Sanderson on the backend, Toronto’s D-core is better all around and is the best it’s been in the last couple of seasons.
Woll and Stolarz has upside to be a great tandem but Ullmark has been one of the best goalies in the league over the last 2-3 seasons. (All stats found on NHL.com and moneypuck.com. All contracts found on Puckpedia.com).
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Ottawa takes the cake in the cage by a long slide but Toronto’s forwards and defencemen edge out Ottawa. Whether that translates in the regular season is yet to be seen, but the Maple Leafs should not struggle to make the playoffs and Ottawa will be battling for a wild card.