How the Toronto Maple Leafs Matchup against 3 Potential Playoff Opponents
How do the Maple Leafs matchup against their three most likely playoff opponents: Florida Panthers, Boston Bruins, New York Rangers.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are in the final stretch of the season, and much of the talk is about who they will match up against in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
They are set to finish third in the Atlantic division and play the Florida Panthers, the team that ended their season last year in five games. The Toronto Maple Leafs are six points behind the Panthers, with a game in hand, a differential that seems unlikely to close this late in the season.
But, the Panthers are only two points back of the Boston Bruins for first in the Atlantic, so if the Maple Leafs were to hold onto third in the division, they could face the black and gold for the third time in the past seven years.
Another divisional rival, the Tampa Bay Lightning, is directly below them in the standings, four points behind the Maple Leafs in the first wild card. Tampa Bay has been on fire in their last ten games, with a record of 8-1-1; it looks like they have regained form from a couple of years ago.
If Tampa were to catch Toronto, the Leafs would be bumped into the first wild card for the first time since 2016-17, when they faced the Washington Capitals in the first round and lost in 6 games.
If the Leafs finish in the wild card this season, they would most likely draw the New York Rangers. New York struggled in the playoffs last year, being bounced in the first round and made no significant changes in the offseason.
Personally, I would not be opposed to the Maple Leafs dropping into a wild card spot and rolling the dice with the Metro division this year. With that, let's take a look at how the Maple Leafs match up against their three most likely playoff opponents.
Florida Panthers
The rematch that no one seems to want. The Florida Panthers look just as good, if not better than last season. When fully healthy they are one of the deepest teams in the league upfront and on the backend.
Matthew Tkachuk and Alexsander Barkov have been elite as always and with the emergence of Sam Reinhart scoring 50 goals, the top of the Panthers forward core is scarier than ever.
They have also been one the best defensive teams in the league all year, allowing the least amount of goals against (178), and are currently in the top three with the least amount of shots against per game (27.82).
Their goaltending has been elite, with Sergei Bobrovsky performing as a top-three starting goalie this year. He is tied for the best GAA average among starting goalies, with a 2.41. He also has a .914 save percentage and 14.5 goals saved above expected.
To put it into perspective, the Maple Leafs still do not seem to know who their starting goalie will be in game 1 of playoffs due to the inconsistent play of both goalies and injury issues.
They have also given up the third most amount of goals of teams currently in the playoffs. Only Dallas and Tampa Bay have given up more goals.
The one spot the Maple Leafs beat the Florida Panthers on paper is offensively. They are the second best team in the league offensively. Auston Matthews and William Nylander are having career years on and off the point sheet as they seem to dominate the play every time they are on the ice.
The Leafs only hope against the Panthers seems to be their offence, which in past years, has disapeared in the playoffs. Florida is probably the worst first round matchup for the Maple Leaf out of the potential teams they could end up playing.
Boston Bruins
The Boston Bruins. The team that haunts many Maple Leafs fans at night.
The Bruins are having an incredible season this year. When you look at their team on paper it is filled with names that you would not think should be playing in the top 6.
Pavel Zacha, Charlie Coyle and Morgan Geekie are all having career years playing in the Boston Bruins top 6 alongside Brad Marchand, David Pastrnak and Jake Debrusk.
The Maple Leafs, without a doubt, have the Bruins covered offensively on paper, but have struggled to score against them in the four regular season games this year. Toronto was held to one goal in two of their games against Boston this season and was swept in the season series, 4-0, two of the games lost in OT/SO, 4-3 and 3-2.
Both teams have been similarly defensively, despite the narrative surrounding both teams. The Bruins have allowed fewer goals, but the Leafs allow less scoring chances per game.
The biggest difference in the two teams is once again in net. Jeremy Swayman and Linus Ullmark have practically split the games 50/50 thus far, with Swayman playing on 4 more games than Ullmark.
It seems the organization would like Swayman to be the starter. At the trade deadline, it was reported that Ullmark refused a trade to another team with his NTC.
Either way, both Woll and Samsonov are no where close to the same caliber as Ullmark or Swayman.
The Toronto Maple Leafs seem to match up fairly evenly with Boston. Still, their performance this year against them in the regular season and their past playoff performances against them leads me to think that Boston would again be the favourite in a best-of-7 series.
New York Rangers
Despite what the standings may say, I think this is the most favourable matchup for the Leafs.
The New York Rangers are built very similarly to the Maple Leafs. High end scoring talent at the top of their lineup, a unconventional bottom 6 and a back end that features only one great puck moving defender.
Matthews, Marner, Nylander and Tavares have outscored Panarin, Kreider, Zibanejad and Trocheck this season. The Leafs "core 4" have scored 147 goals, 179 assists for 326 points compared to the Rangers 126 goal, 179 assists and 305 points.
The next highest scorer on both teams are defensemen: Morgan Rielly and Adam Fox. Fox is far and away better than Rielly both offensively and defensively. If Fox did not miss 10 games at the beginning of the season, he most likely would be in contention for the Norris trophy.
The rest of the Leafs forwards edge out the Rangers in terms of scoring. The Leafs have six 10+ goal scorers outside of the "core 4" compared to the Rangers 5. The mid-season emergence of Bobby McMann and Tyler Bertuzzi heating up have been a real help to their offence.
While the Rangers have struggled to find where Kaapo Kakko and Jack Roslovic fit in the lineup. (All stats can be found at MoneyPuck.com,NHL.comandstatmuse.com).
Similar to Florida and Boston, New York has the advantage with Igor Shesterkin in the crease. Shesterkin has had a down year compared to previous seasons, where he won the Vezina trophy. But recently, he has found his Vezina form, which could be a concern for any team in the playoffs.
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Out of all the potential playoff matchups, the Toronto Maple Leafs matchup against the New York Rangers the best. Though it is the least likely of the three, it would be the best-case scenario in order to avoid the Bruins and Panthers in the first two rounds of the playoffs.