While many older Toronto Maple Leafs fans are numb to the playoff trauma, especially in the Auston Matthews era, most new fans have only seen the Matthews era in the playoffs. And it’s surrounded by a cloud of failure and disappointment. However, under the first season of head coach Craig Berube, the Maple Leafs have been very good, not only statistically, but also stylistically. If there was ever a year to be on the Maple Leafs bandwagon, especially with the Battle of Ontario playoff hype, it’s this season.
The postseason Battle of Ontario has been revived. After 21 years, the Ottawa Senators are looking to finally beat the Maple Leafs in a postseason series for the first time in franchise history. The Maple Leafs have won all four meetings in the playoffs, though those were different teams in a different era.
For reference, Sidney Crosby was 16 years old when the Maple Leafs and Senators last met in the playoffs. The oldest of Generation Z fans were only seven years old at the time. That doesn’t even count the three prior matchups, with the earliest going back to the 1999–2000 season!
Let’s take a look at why this year should have both old and new Maple Leafs fans excited for the Battle of Ontario.
The Battle of Ontario playoff hype: The old guard
The Battle of Ontario has lacked the intensity many fans remember in recent seasons. Gone are the days of Captain Mats Sundin vs Captain Daniel Alfredsson. We are now going to see Captain Auston Matthews versus Captain Brady Tkachuk on Sunday night.
Many younger fans might not remember what the Battle of Ontario was like in the playoffs, but as an older fan, I do. The hatred and animosity that these two teams held for one another in the early 2000s was intense. Darcy Tucker was an absolute menace and agitator on the ice for the Maple Leafs during this era. Watch this clip of Tucker taking on the whole Senator’s bench:
From Senators head coach Travis Greene pointing at Senators’ legend Chris Neil over a hit, to Darcy Tucker fighting the Senators’ bench, we rarely see this level of emotion from players in today’s NHL. And the best part? This was just a regular season game in March 2003.
In the last playoff series between these two teams in 2004, the Maple Leafs had an opportunity to move on to the second round by winning Game 6 in Ottawa. The Maple Leafs were ahead 1–0 heading into the third period. Zdeno Chara ties the game at 1–1. The game remained tied after the first overtime period. In the second overtime period, Mike Fisher scores the winner to force Game 7:
Hear how the Canadian Tire Centre (then called the Corel Centre) goes ballistic. It’s hard to describe to new fans what this rivalry was like without them being able to experience it for themselves or sounding too nostalgic. If I had to describe the animosity between these two teams back then, it would be similar to the modern playoff series against the Boston Bruins or the Tampa Bay Lightning, but on steroids.
The Battle of Ontario playoff hype: Maple Leafs’ season review
Many people will cite the Maple Leafs’ 58-year Stanley Cup drought. Many will simply cite the last eight years of playoff failures. But this doesn’t mean that fans should be any less excited as we enter the playoffs. This team has played playoff-style hockey fairly consistently all season long under Craig Berube. In the previous iterations, the Sheldon Keefe teams would simply try to “flick the switch” come April. We know how this ended.
It’s not up for debate that the Maple Leafs had a superior regular season when compared to the Senators. The Maple Leafs had the second-most wins in the NHL with 52, while the Senators had a much better second half of the season to make the playoffs. The last time a Maple Leafs team got more regular season wins was during the 2021–22.
The Senators are very similar to the 2016–17 Maple Leafs, where the inexperienced Maple Leafs made the playoffs. There was a lot of excitement because it was their first playoffs in over a decade, excluding the anomaly in the shortened season in 2013. However, like the Washington Capitals, the pressure is on the Maple Leafs this time to win the series against an opponent that has zero playoff experience.
Goaltending comparison
We did a full comparison between the two tandems in the Battle of Ontario: Anthony Stolarz-Joseph Woll and Linus Ullmark-Aton Forsberg. The Maple Leafs have received solid goaltending from both Stolarz and Woll throughout the entire season.
Notably, Stolarz led the league in SV% with .926 and is third with a 2.14 GAA. This is probably the best season we have seen from a tandem goaltending duo in the Matthews era. Whether Stolarz can play like Curtis Joseph or Ed Belfour during the previous Battle of Ontario matchups remains to be seen. However, this is the first time in the Matthews era where, heading into the playoffs, goaltending has been hot.
The great chase: Milestones
Last year, the Maple Leafs ended their regular season 0–3–1 heading into the playoffs. Not a good feeling, especially when two of those games were against playoff-bound teams in the Lightning and Panthers. Much of the bad play near the end of the season was due to the team trying to get Auston Matthews to 70 goals and William Nylander to 100 points. Adding to the disappointment was that neither player reached these milestones.
This season, the Maple Leafs found themselves in a similar situation: Matthews was chasing 400 career goals, and Mitch Marner was chasing his first 100-point season. However, the Maple Leafs seemed to be more focused on team play this time around. To end the season, the Maple Leafs went 9–1–0 in their last 10 games. They went 5–0–0 in their last five games and clinched their first Atlantic Division win in franchise history.
By focusing on playing good playoff-style hockey to close out the regular season, Matthews became the sixth fastest player to reach 400 goals. In the same game, Marner finally entered the 100-point club. This is the first time that the Maple Leafs’ offence has been hot entering the playoffs, instead of being nonexistent.
The best Maple Leafs defence corps in the last decade
Another sore spot in recent Maple Leafs’ playoff performances has been the defence. With Brad Treliving’s trade deadline moves, the addition of Brandon Carlo has been one of his best. Carlo is exactly the defenceman the Maple Leafs have been looking for to pair with Morgan Rielly for his whole career. Carlo is a big, stay-at-home defenceman who can use his body and block shots.
The Jake McCabe-Chris Tanev pairing has been elite all season as the Maple Leafs’ shutdown pair. Tanev was Treliving’s big offseason addition, and he has come as advertised. Tanev is responsible defensively and eats rubber, being sixth in the NHL with 189 blocked shots.
The bottom pairing of Simon Benoit–Oliver Ekman-Larsson has been nasty as well. Both Benoit and OEL have embraced their third-line role and have been an absolute nightmare to play against. Benoit was seventh among defencemen with 204 hits in the regular season. Even the seventh defenceman of Dakota Mermis or Philippe Myers has been solid in their respective roles to fill in for injuries.
Can Maple Leafs fans remember when we were so deep on the back-end? Can Maple Leafs fans remember when all defence pairings were firing on all cylinders leading up to the playoffs? I can’t.
The Battle of Ontario playoff hype: Let it all start anew
This is probably the deepest Maple Leafs team that we have seen in the Matthews era, even better than the 2022–23 team that beat the Lightning in the first round. In their last 16 games, the Maple Leafs are one of the hottest teams entering the playoffs with a 13–2–1 record. The primary and secondary offence is entering the playoffs hot. The defence corps is the strongest it has been in literal decades. The goaltending has been solid all year and league-leading.
Despite this, the Senators have won the regular season series against the Maple Leafs. This is a young, hungry, and gritty Senators team, with a passionate fanbase that has been starved for playoff hockey since 2017. We also know that Brady Tkachuk is going to be a handful, as he was during the 4 Nations: Face-Off tournament. But this is just what playoff hockey is all about: the best of the best.
The Battle of Ontario starts tonight, and Maple Leafs fans old and young should be excited. These are the kind of rivalries and moments that imprint memories on hockey fans for decades to come. And for the Maple Leafs, hopefully, a deep playoff run follows suit.
