The Rocky Road Through Boston: Maple Leafs vs Bruins Round-One Preview

We do, in fact, want Boston...

Last year, when the Toronto Maple Leafs went down 3-0 to the Florida Panthers in Round Two of the Stanley Cup playoffs, I joked that the Leafs needed some Hollywood magic but since the writers were on strike that would not be possible.

A little under a year later, the writers are back at work and the Leafs once again need the magic usually found in a movie script.

The Maple Leafs (and their fans) are gearing up for a first-round series against the Boston Bruins. It’s the fourth time in eleven years the two franchises have met in the first round, the last being in 2019. And every time it’s the same result: Boston wins it all in seven games, punctuated by some sort of collapse by the Leafs in the seventh game.

The Bruins are the monster hiding in the Leafs’ closet. The dragon hoarding the gold of playoff success. The demon that haunts their dreams.

Which is why the Boston Bruins are the perfect first-round matchup for the Toronto Maple Leafs if they are ever to reach the promised land and win the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1967.

Let me explain.

We Want Florida Boston!

Last year, when the Leafs finally made it out of the first round for the first time since 2004, there were duelling chants in Maple Leafs Square outside Scotiabank Arena. The second-round opponent was yet to be determined, with the Leafs set to face the winner of the next day’s Game Seven between Boston and Florida. As such, one group chanted “We Want Boston!” and another group of fans chanted, “We Want Florida!”

Social media fixated on the “We Want Florida!” chant since the Panthers were the lowest seed in the Eastern Conference. They had only made the playoffs on the final day of the regular season, and their pushing Boston to a Game Seven was something of a surprise. As such, they were seen as the easier second-round matchup.

We all know what happened next. Florida beat Boston in overtime, then defeated the Leafs in five games—winning all three at Scotiabank Arena—en route to a Stanley Cup final appearance where they ultimately lost to the Vegas Golden Knights.

Leafs fans have been roundly mocked for the past years for the “We Want Florida” chant. Panthers fans chanted it during their home games at Amerant Bank Arena against the Leafs this season, both of which the Panthers won handily. It even extended beyond the ice, as CF Montreal fans chanted “We Want Florida” during a soccer match in Toronto after their club took a two-goal lead over TFC.

Back in April 2023, however, I was with the fans chanting “We Want Boston!”

Was it tempting to get caught up in the idea of an “easy” path to the Cup?

Sure.

But if the 2021 season taught us anything, when the Leafs had—in theory—the easy path to the Cup through the Canadian division and then blew a 3-1 series lead to the Montreal Canadiens, it’s that there are no easy paths to success in the NHL playoffs. The fact that Montreal and Florida made it to the Cup finals despite being the “worst” teams in the playoffs in 2021 and 2023 respectively is proof.

Still, given the two roads, why not choose the “lesser” one? Why subject yourself to the challenges and tribulations of a tougher path?

A quote from Joseph Campbell, the American writer who popularized the Hero’s Journey with his seminal work “The Hero With A Thousand Faces”, feels appropriate here.

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek.”

The treasure sought by the Leafs is the Stanley Cup. There is no cave the Leafs (and their fans) fear more than the Boston Bruins.

There’s no way to the Cup without entering the cave.

So in we go.

Destiny Arrives

I came to terms with the need to go through Boston to get to the Cup a long time ago. Don’t believe me? Go back and read my preview for the 2022-2023 season. Specifically, the portion of the article subtitled “A Dance With Dragons”, where I laid out the idea of the Leafs needing to beat the Bruins to shake their various curses.

In that article, I used a Game of Thrones/House of the Dragon/A Song of Ice and Fire framing device to preview the season. But the dragon metaphor has become played out. Instead, let’s use a more modern villain as the stand-in for the Bruins.

Thanos.

In the first trailer for Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos (Josh Brolin) tells the heroes (and the audience), “In time you will know what it’s like to lose. To feel so desperately that you’re right yet to fail all the same.”

If that doesn’t sum up being a Leafs fan in the past several years, I don’t know what does.

There have been so many years when it felt like the Leafs were on the cusp of breaking through. When it felt like they deserved to win. The blown 3-1 lead over Montreal in 2021 definitely fits there. As does the 2022 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning. Even last year’s second-round loss to Florida could be lumped in there. And then there were all those Game Sevens against Boston.

In 2013 it felt like the Leafs would get to be the victorious underdog, the dark horse that battled back from a 3-1 deficit to win the series. And they were winning Game Seven. In Boston! It was 4-1. Then they gave up three goals with less than eleven minutes to go in the third.

In 2018, the rebuilt Leafs now boasted a roster that included elite, young talent like Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander. Again they battled back from a 3-1 series deficit and went into the third period of Game Seven with a lead. Final score: Boston 7, Toronto 4.

In 2019, the Leafs, having added John Tavares in the offseason, had the opportunity to win the series at home in Game Six. They even scored first! And yet Boston forced a Game Seven, which they won 5-1.

There is so much talent on the Leafs roster. Auston Matthews scored 69 goals this season! William Nylander has back-to-back 40-goal seasons. Mitch Marner (when he isn’t injured) flirts with 100 points every year. John Tavares and Morgan Rielly are elite in their roles and always step up in the playoffs.

If there’s anyone who knows what it feels like to lose, to feel like their team should have won but failed all the same, it’s Leafs fans. We’ve had eight straight years of it.

In the Infinity War trailer, Thanos continues, “Dread it. Run from it. Destiny still arrives.”

You can’t escape your destiny. You must face it and overcome it, or fail.

For the Leafs, destiny takes the form of Brad Marchand.

Lightning in a Bottle

When John Tavares scored in overtime of Game Six against Tampa last year, finally pushing the Leafs past the first round, Sportsnet play-by-play man Chris Cuthbert had the perfect words.

“They’ve finally caught Lightning in a bottle!” Cuthbert declared as the Leafs players swarmed Tavares.

First, that’s an A+ goal call and an excellent repurposing of a common phrase by Cuthbert. 10/10. No notes.

That said, the saying, “lightning in a bottle” usually means something so improbable you will never expect to see it twice. So the notion that the Leafs getting to the second is “lightning in a bottle” is less than ideal.

(For the record, I don’t think that’s what Cuthbert meant with his call. It was almost certainly just something cool to say, putting an exclamation point on an epic moment).

The way the second-round series against Florida went (“We want Florida”), the Leafs now have to prove that winning that series against Tampa wasn’t a fluke. Beating Tampa in the first round, only to be nearly swept in the second, can’t be the best this team will ever achieve. It can’t just be lightning in a bottle.

The team made changes in the offseason to help ensure this. Before the season, many (myself included) highlighted Max Domi and Tyler Bertuzzi as additions who would be impact players in the next post-season. And the trade deadline acquisitions of Ilya Lubuskyn, Joel Edmundson, and Connor Dewar are also supposed to shift the Leafs towards a more “playoff style” of hockey.

Time to see if the bets General Manager Brad Treliving and team President Brendan Shanahan made will pay off.

A win against the Bruins this year would wipe away the “fluke” concern, on top of erasing the pain of the 2013, 2018, and 2019 losses. If the Leafs needed added motivation to beat the Bruins, there it is.

And, not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but if the Leafs make it past the Bruins, waiting for them will be either Tampa or Florida—a rematch of one of their playoff series from last year. A win there would eviscerate the legacy of choking that has followed this team.

It doesn’t do anyone much good to dwell on round two before round one even begins, but one of the problems the Leafs appeared to run into last year was celebrating their win in round one so much they weren’t fully ready for what came next. And while the showdown with Boston feels like the ultimate date with destiny, the Leafs need to see it as just one step on their journey. The goal isn’t just to beat Boston or prove themselves in a second round.

The goal is the Stanley Cup. It takes sixteen wins across four gruelling rounds to get there. The best teams, the ones who reach the goal, know how to stare down destiny, defeat their demons, and take the journey one step at a time without losing sight of their endgame.

It’s time for the Leafs to look destiny in the eye and push straight past it. The talent and skill is there. All that is needed now is the will to get it done.

And starting tonight, they have a chance.

We want Boston.

Go Leafs Go.