Maple Leafs at Bruins
The Boston Bruins were the best team in hockey for a long stretch of the season but with their playoff destiny and the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference in their hands, they stumbled in the finale on home ice. Instead of opening the playoffs against the No. 8 seed, the Bruins will face a much more dangerous opponent when they host the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday night.
"They're a skilled, fast team. They come at you. They're well-coached, disciplined, do all the little things right," Boston forward David Backes said of Toronto. "It's going to be a test for us, but this team has faced every test that we've had head-on and done a pretty good job at finding the right answers." The Bruins lost four of their final five games, including a season-ending loss to Florida, but they still finished with 112 points, won at least four straight on five different occasions and amassed an 18-game point streak. Former No. 1 overall pick Auston Matthews leads the high-powered Maple Leafs, who won three of four against Boston this season and pushed top-seeded Washington to six games a year ago. "We're just not happy to be here," Toronto coach Mike Babcock said. "The guys got a real belief in the room. They've earned the right, because of the way the season's gone, to feel like that. So, I think that's a little bit different feeling than we had at this time (last year)."
TV: 7 p.m. ET, NBC Sports Network, CBC, TVAS (Toronto), NESN (Boston)
ABOUT THE MAPLE LEAFS (49-26-7, 3rd in Atlantic): Matthews missed 20 games to injury in his second season but still finished second on the team with 34 goals and showed no rust in his return from a month-long absence, collecting at least one point in his final nine games. A big key for Toronto could be the No. 2 line centered by Nazem Kadri, who matched a career best with 32 goals and is joined by veteran Patrick Marleau (27 goals) and second-year forward Mitch Marner, the team's leading scorer with 69 points. Frederik Andersen entered the season a perfect 9-0-0 against Boston and won two of three matchups this season, surrendering a combined eight goals.
ABOUT THE BRUINS (50-20-12, 2nd in Atlantic): Boston was one of the top defensive clubs in the league but it certainly has plenty of offense to match up against the Maple Leafs, particularly the lethal No. 1 line of Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak, who each scored at least 30 goals and were the team's top three point producers. Forward Rick Nash, acquired in a blockbuster trade with the New York Rangers, practiced for the last two days after missing the final 12 games due to a concussion and is expected back in the lineup -- likely at the expense of promising rookie Ryan Donato. Former Vezina Trophy winner Tuukka Rask put together point streaks of 21 (19-0-2) and 11 games (10-0-1) but is 1-4-0 in six starts against the Maple Leafs over the past two seasons.
OVERTIME
1. Marleau and Nash are among seven players in the postseason who have appeared in 1,000 games and haven't won a Stanley Cup.
2. Marner torched Boston for three goals and nine points in four games in 2017-18.
3. Pastrnak had two goals and four points in the four meetings this season.