The Maple Leafs are a lot tougher than last season, period.
Looking at the potential matchups for Toronto in the first round, it’s either the Boston Bruins or the Tampa Bay Lightning. Both teams have been a tough team for the Maple Leafs in the past, but not so much anymore.
There was a lot of discussion about Thursday’s game against Tampa and it had a lot of fans wondering whether Toronto could keep up physically in a seven-game series. I, personally, didn’t feel like the Maple Leafs were pushed around at all.
Blackwell goes for Paul pic.twitter.com/IcD7QUnn5z
— Omar (@TicTacTOmar) April 22, 2022
Whenever there were scrums, plenty of players from Toronto weren’t afraid to step in. There was one instance where Wayne Simmonds and Pat Maroon dropped the gloves and the Lightning player ended up not wanting much of a part in the fisticuffs.
Wayne Simmonds and Pat Maroon drop em pic.twitter.com/c5InwQuDmy
— Omar (@TicTacTOmar) April 22, 2022
I believe that when you look at the physical battle the Maple Leafs are going to face, you have to wonder how much they’re going to throw their own weight around. There will be players like Mark Giordano, Ilya Lyubushkin, Jake Muzzin, Wayne Simmonds, Kyle Clifford, Auston Matthews, Michael Bunting, and even Mitch Marner using physicality to their advantage.
Marner, in particular, has eight games this season where he’s thrown three or more hits. The 24-year-old has more 3+ hit games this season than he’s had in his previous five year’s combined.
If you can get him throwing the body along with putting up career point totals in the playoffs, another head is added to the monster that is Toronto.
When looking at the Maple Leafs team as a whole, you have the tough, physical players. But the team also has guys who can outmuscle and outbattle the opposing team for the puck and positioning. Some of those players include John Tavares, Pierre Engvall, David Kampf, Ilya Mikheyev, Morgan Rielly, an …
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Author: Nick Barden / The Leafs Nation