The Boston Bruins will try to extend their decades-long playoff success against the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs when they meet in a first-round matchup at TD Garden.
Game time for Game 1 is 8 p.m. EDT on Saturday, April 20, and you can view it on TBS and TruTV and live stream it on Sling TV (first-month discount) and DirecTV Stream (free trial)
The Bruins haven’t lost a playoff series to Toronto since 1959, winning six straight series that have helped extend their Original Six rival’s Stanley Cup drought to more than half of a century. In addition, Boston won all four regular-season matchups with the Leafs during the regular season.
Although the outcomes have been one-sided, the Bruins have had to work for their victories.
Boston won back-to-back seven-game series in 2018 and ‘19. In their first-round matchup in 2013, the Bruins rallied from a three-goal, third-period deficit in Game 7 and won in overtime.
- WATCH: TBS and TruTV and live stream it on Sling TV (first-month discount) and DirecTV Stream (free trial)
“Completely new game and a new season,” Auston Matthews, one of five Toronto holdovers from the last matchup five years ago, told the Canadian Press after the regular season-ending loss to Tampa. “Do our due diligence and make sure that we’re recovering and ready.”
The lopsided history raised questions about whether the Bruins finagled a matchup with the Leafs by losing three of their last four games of the season. That dropped Boston out of first place in the Atlantic Division — and a potential matchup with the more dangerous Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Bruins haven’t advanced in the playoffs since 2021 — despite setting NHL records for points and wins last season.
Marchand thinks it would be foolish to underestimate Toronto.
“Nothing you do in the season has any bearing on what’s going to happen in the future,” he told The Associated Press. “You start getting caught up in the past, whether it’s good or bad, it’s going to affect your play. You need to stay in the moment, playoffs time.”
Charlie Coyle has scored 25 goals with 34 assists for the Bruins (47-20-15, second in the Atlantic Division) while Pavel Zacha has four goals and eight assists over the last 10 games.
The Bruins aren’t saying who will start in net, though indications are that they will at least begin by rotating Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman, a continuation of what occurred this season.
Swayman, who played three of the four games against Toronto, was 25-10-8 overall in 43 starts with a 2.53 goals-against average and Ullmark was 22-10-7 in 39 starts, allowing 2.57 goals per game. Ullmark was the playoff starter last year when he won the Vezina Trophy after leading the Bruins to a record-setting regular season. But after he allowed six goals in 32 shots in a Game 6 loss to Florida, Swayman started — and lost — the first-round clincher.
Toronto (46-26-10, third in the Atlantic Division) is led by Auston Matthews, who finished the season with 69 goals and 38 assists. William Nylander (40-58-98) and Mitchell Marner (26-59-85) were the team’s second- and third-best scorers.
Ilya Samsonov was the primary goaltender, winning 23 games in 40 appearances. He had a 3.13 goals-against average.
Toronto dropped four straight to finish third in the Atlantic, seven points behind the Bruins and still four points better than Tampa Bay.
“Definitely not how we want to be playing going into the post-season,” Matthews said. “I don’t think we can just think we’re going to turn it on.”
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