After a four-point weekend trek through California with road wins over the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks, the Toronto Maple Leafs have carved out a three-point cushion on both the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning atop the Atlantic Division. While there is still plenty to be decided among the three teams, it was a highly-encouraging weekend for Maple Leafs fans hoping to secure the club’s first true division crown (apologies, 2021 North Division) in 25 years.
Winning the Atlantic, however, comes with a catch: it would almost certainly set up a Battle of Ontario playoff showdown with the Ottawa Senators.
There would, of course, be plenty of reason for Toronto to feel good about such a scenario. For one, they would enter as significant Round 1 favourites, owning home ice advantage and currently boasting a 10-point cushion in the standings. Also, for as much as postseason baggage has burdened the Maple Leafs in recent years, they carry a major historical edge over the Senators, ousting them four times in five playoff runs in the early 2000s without ever dropping a series.
If the NHL Playoffs started TODAY we would have the Battle of Ontario in the First Round.
— BET99 Ontario (@BET99ON) March 31, 2025
Throwback to the 2004 Series between the #LeafsForever and the #GoSensGo pic.twitter.com/HALrjU92CQ
But the early 2000s was a long time ago, and now there would be legitimate cause for concern heading into a series with the young, rising Senators. There’s a reason, after all, that The Hockey Writers’ Aidan Cowling-McDonnell recently identified Toronto as the most desirable first round opponent for Ottawa. Let’s take a look at why another Battle of Ontario should make Maple Leafs fans a bit uneasy heading into the postseason.
Season Results
Look, the playoff history between the teams simply doesn’t mean anything at this point. Although it might conjure up unhappy memories for team staff like Ottawa assistant coach Daniel Alfredsson (ironically enough, Senators head coach Travis Green was a member of the victorious Maple Leafs during their 2002 series), few Senators players would likely recall a string of playoff series from more than 20 years ago. Heck, leading scorer Tim Stutzle wasn’t even alive for the first two head-to-head series.
What they will remember, however, is their 3-0-0 record against the Maple Leafs this season. Sure, things change come playoff time, but Toronto’s regular season struggles with Ottawa’s speed and their inability to solve Linus Ullmark and Anton Forsberg could be exploited in the postseason.
Speed remains a strength of the Senators, even after parting ways with Josh Norris in the Dylan Cozens trade with the Buffalo Sabres. Stutzle ranks among the league’s fastest forwards, while Jake Sanderson is in the upper echelon of fleet-of-foot defenders. They could prove to be a handful for an aging Maple Leafs blue line that, while solid in terms of size and physicality, can struggle when challenged by speed off the wing.
In terms of goaltending, Toronto has managed just three goals against the Senators in as many games this season, including being shut out at the hands of Ullmark back in November. Although Ullmark only saw action in one game of the Boston Bruins’ 4-3 first round defeat of the Maple Leafs last spring – a 3-2 loss in Game 2 – he does carry a 2.86 goals against average and .905 save percentage in 13 career games against the club.
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Playoff Psyche
There’s no question where the pressure would lie in this iteration of the Battle of Ontario. Every Maple Leafs fan is well-versed in the organization’s maddening playoff history in the ‘Core Four’ era. In spite of eight-consecutive postseason appearances (this season will represent the ninth straight), Toronto has just one playoff series win to show for it. With Mitch Marner and John Tavares both being pending unrestricted free agents, there is a very real chance that this is the last hurrah for the team’s long-standing core. Another first-round loss and there may be no choice but to break it up.
That win-now urgency stands in stark contrast to the Senators’ current mindset. In what is shaping up to be the franchise’s first postseason appearance since 2017, Ottawa has everything to gain and nothing to lose as opening round underdogs. All of Stutzle, Sanderson, Cozens, Brady Tkachuk, Drake Batherson, and Thomas Chabot are essentially locked up through most of their prime years, with Ullmark also under contract long-term. This could be the first of many playoff appearances to come in the nation’s capital.
If the Maple Leafs’ current mental state was strictly centered around the urgency of this postseason, that would be a potentially productive, motivating mindset. The concern is that they may be bogged down by the weight of the many preceding playoff failures, especially given how many current roster members were present during the stretch of futility. It wouldn’t be the first time a Toronto team failed to live up to their status as the betting favourite in the playoffs.
Here comes the yearly tradition of the Leafs at the handshake line after a playoff loss #LeafsForever pic.twitter.com/NF2DtuvJaF
— Maple Leafs Hotstove (@LeafsNews) June 1, 2021
Make no mistake, dropping a first-round playoff series to the Senators would represent the Maple Leafs’ biggest disappointment to date. You could argue they were more heavily favoured against the Montreal Canadiens in 2021 and against the Columbus Blue Jackets in the 2020 qualifying round, but the weirdness of the COVID-19 pandemic diminished the significance of those years. Toronto fans can take solace in the bad luck of running into a tough string of juggernaut opponents (Tampa Bay Lightning, Boston Bruins and Florida Panthers), but those excuses are no longer valid when it comes to an unproven Ottawa squad – to say nothing of the geography and playoff history involved.
For as significant as an Atlantic Division title would be for the Maple Leafs, a first round matchup with the Senators might represent a worst-case scenario in a lot of ways. They are young, fast, and hungry, playing with plenty of skill and toughness in the form of Tkachuk, not to mention boasting an established goaltender in Ullmark. And yet, it would be Toronto who feel the weight of expectations tied to being the favoured team with a heavily-checkered recent playoff history.
A new Battle of Ontario could vault the Maple Leafs into the second round, but it could also serve as arguably their biggest and most-costly embarrassment amidst a nine-year string of disappointing postseason results.
