How the Toronto Maple Leafs Matchup against 3 Potential Playoff Opponents

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.