The Toronto Maple Leafs will play the Ottawa Senators in the Eastern Conference First Round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Toronto (51-26-4), which won the Atlantic Division with a 4-0 victory at the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday, will have home-ice advantage in the best-of-7 series against Ottawa (44-30-7), which is the first wild card in the Eastern Conference.
The Maple Leafs have qualified for the playoffs each of the past nine seasons, with one series victory in that span. They lost in seven games to the Boston Bruins in the first round last season. The Senators last made the playoffs in 2017, when they lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins in seven games in the conference final.
Forward Mitch Marner leads the Maple Leafs with 100 points (27 goals, 73 assists) in 80 games, and forward William Nylander is second with 84 points and a team-high 45 goals in 81 games. Forwards John Tavares (38), Auston Matthews (32), Matthew Knies (29) and Bobby McMann (20) also each has at least 20 goals this season. Goalie Joseph Woll is 26-14-1 with a 2.72 goals-against average, .909 save percentage and one shutout in 41 games (40 starts), and Anthony Stolarz entered Tuesday 20-8-3 with a 2.21 GAA and .923 save percentage in 33 games (32 starts).
The Senators are led by forwards Tim Stutzle, who has 76 points (23 goals, 53 assists) in 81 games and Drake Batherson, who has 65 points (24 goals, 41 assists) in 81 games. Forward Brady Tkachuk, who hasn’t played since March 30 because of an upper-body injury, has 55 points (29 goals, 26 assists) in 71 games. Goalie Linus Ullmark is 24-14-3 with a 2.67 GAA, .911 save percentage and four shutouts in 43 games (42 starts), and Anton Forsberg entered Tuesday 11-12-2 with a 2.67 GAA, .904 save percentage and three shutouts in 29 games (26 starts). Leevi Merilainen, who was assigned to the American Hockey League in February, is 8-3-1 with a 1.99 GAA, .925 save percentage and three shutouts in 12 games (11 starts).
Ottawa was 3-0-0 against Toronto in the season series, outscoring the Maple Leafs 9-3. Stutzle (two goals, one assist), forward Claude Giroux (one goal, two assists) and defenseman Thomas Chabot (three assists) each had three points. Ullmark was 2-0-0, allowing two goals on 50 shots (.960 save percentage), including a 27-save shutout in a 3-0 win on Nov. 12. Forsberg made 28 saves in his only appearance, a 2-1 win on Jan. 25.
Nylander, Matthews and McMann were the only Maple Leafs players to score in the season series. Woll allowed two goals on 23 shots in the 2-1 loss on Jan. 25. Stolarz was 0-2-0 with a 3.16 GAA and .908 save percentage.
Toronto and Ottawa have met four times in the postseason, with the Maple Leafs winning each. They played four times in five seasons from 2000-04. Toronto won the most recent series, the conference quarterfinals in 2004, in seven games.
