The Stanley Cup Playoffs series between the Blue Jackets and Maple Leafs might be the most fascinating of the postseason.
Hockey will get back underway on August 1 when the Stanley Cup Playoffs officially begin. We’ve never seen anything like this postseason, as there will be 24 teams in it. Two of those teams finished with the same record and will be facing each other. Yet they couldn’t be more different. Those teams? The Columbus Blue Jackets and Toronto Maple Leafs.
Both teams finished with 81 points in 70 games. But that’s about everything the two teams have in common. The two teams have conflicting systems, playing styles, and strengths. That’s what makes this series so gosh darn fascinating. It’s strength against strength.
Likewise, the two teams took different paths to get to this point. Because there hasn’t been hockey since Mid-March, here’s a refresher on how these two teams took different paths, yet wound up at the same fork in the road.
TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS
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The Maple Leafs are what you might call “underachievers”. That’s largely because they had a very weak start to their season, which led to them firing head coach Mike Babcock and promoting Sheldon Keefe from his role as the head coach of the Toronto Marlies. The Leafs refused to let anyone interview Keefe whenever head coaching jobs became available, and he quickly proved why that was the case.
Under Keefe, the Maple Leafs had the eighth-best record in the league. They finally started taking advantage of their strengths and started playing like the offensive juggernaut they were supposed to be.
COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS
Unlike the Leafs, the Blue Jackets weren’t thought of by many as being a postseason contender. They lost Artemi Panarin, Matt Duchene, Ryan Dzingel, and Sergei Bobrovsky last summer. Few thought the Blue Jackets could replicate their recent success.
Head coach John Tortorella didn’t get that memo. He’s taken a team that suffered the most injuries in the league to the postseason and was rightfully named a Jack Adams Trophy finalist for doing so. Tortorella also did this with two very young goaltenders.