Forget that the Boston Bruins have lost their past three games, five of the previous seven and 13 of 20 since New Year’s Eve.
Forget that the Maple Leafs have won 10 of their past 11 against non-playoff teams, among which Boston inexplicably finds itself.
Or that the B’s will be without key defencemen Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm in the coming weeks when trying to recover at least wild-card status by mid-April.
A Toronto visit to Boston, for any meaningful match, usually doesn’t end well for the Blue and White, going by Game 7 results and late regular-season losses there the past two years.
Count on Boston, full strength or otherwise, to use this divisional test as the ideal motivator. Who knows, these teams could yet meet again in the first round.
The question at TD Garden on Tuesday is whether Team Canada’s dramatic overtime victory in the 4 Nations Face-Off final last week against the Americans in their noisy den doubled as an exorcism for general foliage frustrations.
Certainly, Leafs winger Mitch Marner will walk a lot taller on Causeway Street after his huge helper on Connor McDavid’s winning goal and a pretty good tournament overall. Compared to nights the Leafs couldn’t get to Logan Airport fast enough, Marner didn’t want to leave the rink as he and mates swigged champagne, beer and clutched their shiny goal medals.
Leafs captain Auston Matthews could’ve basked in a red, white and blue glow had he completed his Paul Revere ride and potted the winner on one of his many chances. But the crowd won’t be on his side this time and expects its skipper, Brad Marchand, to chirp or chip his way into the head of Matthews and other Leafs.
Beyond this game, Boston must make up ground against the seven teams within four points on either side of it, only two of which get wild-card passes.
Fire the coach? They already cut Jim Montgomery loose a few months after he had won 112 games during the two previous seasons in the hope ex-Leaf Joe Sacco can right the ship.
There’s already a strange look to the standings with Boston so low and the Leafs trying to finish first in the Atlantic/Northeast Division for the first time since 2000. That was around the most recent time the Leafs made the playoffs and the perennially powerful Bruins did not.
Another statistical tidbit for long-suffering Leafs fans amid their 58-year Stanley Cup drought is that Toronto’s past four championships in the 1960s all came in years Boston didn’t qualify.
The Leafs took Monday off, flying from Chicago to Boston after sweeping a back-to-back to open their stretch drive.
It’s noteworthy the Leafs also have a new boss behind their bench this season in Craig Berube, a man not interested in their past with the Bruins. His Leafs lead the season series 2-1 with an overtime loss in Boston.
“If you look at the standings and where everyone is situated (Toronto a point up on Florida with a game in hand), points are crucial,” Berube told reporters after the 5-2 final in Chicago. “We talked about it before the break, we really have to push here and guys have done a good job so far.
“We go to Boston now and it’s going to be a big game. We want consistency, to look the same night in and night out, do what we have to do and win hockey games.”
Boston always has had a dominant defenceman to vex the Leafs all the way back to the 1930s — from Eddie Shore to Bobby Orr, Ray Bourque, Zdeno Chara and now McAvoy. But as the B’s will have to make do without the current stud and Lindholm, Toronto has developed its best shutdown pair in recent memory with Chris Tanev and Jake McCabe.
Both added rare goals against Chicago.
“You see the give-and-go’s all over the ice and the neutral-zone transition,” Leafs winger Max Domi praised. “They drive the bus back there, they do so many things that no one ever talks about. Everyone thinks about (defencemen) scoring goals, but they do stuff that’s way more important than that.”
But all 20 Leafs will have to be locked and loaded if they wish to shift the post-season pressure squarely on Boston.
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