While the regular season isn’t quite over, the Toronto Maple Leafs have locked in a playoff matchup with the Ottawa Senators.
The Atlantic Division crown that has eluded the team for so many years has finally let Toronto avoid an Eastern Conference heavyweight in the first round and allowed for the ‘Battle of Ontario’ to break out once again.
Although this is indisputably a good outcome for the Maple Leafs, it’s worth considering how Toronto stacks up against its provincial rival. There is a difference between an easier opponent than the defending Stanley Cup champions or a formidable Tampa Bay Lightning squad, and a complete pushover.
Let’s dive into how the two teams stack up.
Season-Long Comparison
| Team | Record | Goal Differential | PP% | PK% | 5v5 SF% | 5v5 xGF% | SV% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TOR | 51-26-4 | 37 | 25.00% | 78.10% | 49.46% | 48.53% | .912 |
| OTT | 44-30-7 | 8 | 23.50% | 77.90% | 50.22% | 49.50% | .907 |
Takeaway: The overall profile of these teams is fairly similar.
Neither reliably controls the play, but each has received above-average goaltending and some strong finishers that help offset unimpressive possession metrics.
What the chart above doesn’t quite hammer home is the difference in offensive success between the two teams. The Maple Leafs and Senators allowed an extremely similar number of goals (226 for Toronto and 227 for Ottawa), but the boys in blue and white rank seventh in the NHL in goal scoring (3.25/game) while their rivals rank 21st (2.90/game).
It might sound harsh to describe the Senators as a worse version of the Maple Leafs, but over the course of the season, that’s what they’ve looked like.
A series against the Florida Panthers would pit Toronto against a team that is a specifically difficult matchup for the Maple Leafs. Facing the Lightning would mean going against a squad with impressive underlying numbers.
Despite Ottawa’s head-to-head success against the Maple Leafs, the Senators don’t fit either of those descriptions.
That said, a sample of more recent results tells a slightly different story:
Last 20 Games
| Team | Record | Goal Differential | PP% | PK% | 5v5 SF% | 5v5 xGF% | SV% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TOR | 13-6-1 | 15 | 30.40% | 73.60% | 47.60% | 47.02% | .912 |
| OTT | 13-5-2 | 11 | 23.70% | 82.60% | 48.87% | 49.41% | .910 |
Takeaway: These numbers don’t change things enormously, but they make it clear that Ottawa enters the playoffs on more even footing with the Maple Leafs than the season-long statistics suggest.
This is a handy section of the season to look at because the vast majority of it includes trade deadline acquisitions, which changed the shape of both teams. Toronto upgraded its blueline and bottom-six with Brandon Carlo and Scott Laughton, while Ottawa beefed up its forward corps with Dylan Cozens and Fabian Zetterlund.
With Laughton’s struggles, it’s safe to say the Maple Leafs haven’t gotten the level of boost they were hoping for yet. On the other side, Cozens has slotted nicely into his role while Zetterlund’s impact has been muted.
Perhaps the most important trend here is the divergent path of Toronto’s special teams. The five-forward power play has produced at an elite clip, but penalty-killing has been a huge issue despite Laughton and Carlo’s capabilities there.
The Maple Leafs will need to be disciplined in this series because even though Ottawa’s power play is far from terrifying, it looks like anyone can score on Toronto’s PK right now.
Head-to-Head Numbers
| Team | Record | GF | GA | PP% | 5v5 SF% | 5v5 xGF% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TOR | 0-3-0 | 3 | 9 | 0.00% | 46.70% | 48.30% |
| OTT | 3-0-0 | 9 | 3 | 28.50% | 53.30% | 51.70% |
Takeaway: This is where Maple Leafs fans might feel a touch nervous, but maybe they shouldn’t.
Toronto’s November 12 matchup with the Senators was an absolute trainwreck and one of the low points of the season. The other two games were suboptimal, but they weren’t trouncings that suggest Ottawa has the Maple Leafs’ number.
In those two games, Toronto outshot the Senators 47-39 at 5v5 with a 56.44 percent expected goal rate. The special teams edge was notable, but the samples are too small to make much from. The Maple Leafs only received five power-play opportunities in their three games against the Senators, while Ottawa got seven.
While it can’t be considered encouraging that the Maple Leafs lost all three of their matchups with the Senators during the regular season, it doesn’t seem particularly damning, either.
Worth noting is that the Maple Leafs never ran their current top line of Knies-Matthews-Marner for a single one of these matchups. Auston Matthews missed one of the games due to injury, Bobby McMann played with Matthews-Marner for one, and the coaching staff split Matthews, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander across three lines in the final game of the regular-season series.
Matchups to watch
Tim Stützle line vs. Jake McCabe – Chris Tanev pairing
Stützle is the Senators’ top offensive threat, and the Maple Leafs will lock in on shutting him down, whoever is on his flanks.
In the two games Toronto had last shift against Ottawa, the Maple Leafs didn’t have a particular centre they stuck to Stützle, but he saw a lot of McCabe, and it seems safe to assume that will be the case again — presuming he’s available.
Stützle battled McCabe for 19:21 at 5v5 across three games, and the Senators dominated those minutes with a 15-6 shot margin and 77.69 percent expected goal rate, but neither side scored. The Tanev-Stützle minutes were slightly better for the Maple Leafs, who earned a 1-0 goal differential despite being outshot 9-6.
This is small-sample stuff, but throughout the series, we will learn which team gets the better of this matchup.
Auston Matthews – Mitch Marner line vs. Shane Pinto line
Ottawa had last change against Toronto just once this season, but it was clear the Senators wanted to shove Pinto down the throat of the Maple Leafs’ first line.
Matthews played 13:27 of his 19:54 of 5v5 time in Ottawa against Pinto, and over the last three years, there have been 40:27 of Matthews-Pinto 5v5 time. Toronto has a shot (18-14) and goal (2-1) advantage in that time, but Ottawa will happily take a narrow loss in this matchup.
Toronto’s top line should be good enough to roll the Pinto unit and make Ottawa re-evaluate its matchup strategy. If the Senators are able to keep their third line glued to Matthews all series, that will be a win for Ottawa.
John Tavares – William Nylander line vs. Thomas Chabot – Nick Jensen pairing
Despite Jake Sanderson’s offensive prowess, the Senators tend to give him a Artem Zub a load of defensive zone starts (each is over 56% at even strength) and matchups with opponents’ top weapons.
That means the Maple Leafs’ second line should see a lot of the Chabot-Jensen pairing. The duo has played together plenty this season (984:15 at 5v5) and generally stalemated opponents (50% shot share, 49.61% expected goal rate).
Their results have been slightly better than that, but it’s not an intimidating duo. Of particular interest will be whether Nylander can exploit Chabot on the right side, considering the 28-year-old is offensively ambitious, no stranger to a gaffe, and will be playing in his first playoff series.
Bottom Line
The Senators have put together a respectable season that’s ending on a strong note, but there’s a reason there’s been so much talk about the importance of the Maple Leafs avoiding Florida and Tampa Bay.
While there are no guarantees, the Senators are what most wild-card teams are, a middling squad that should be happy to be in the playoffs.
The Maple Leafs have their vulnerabilities and the weight of history on their shoulders, but they are also looking at a far more promising playoff bracket than they have in some time.
