Maple Leafs vs. Senators: 5 burning questions for the first-round playoff series

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This one is going to be great theatre.

Two huge rivals. The biggest hockey market in the league against the provincial little brother. A team that has consistently disappointed in the playoffs but is the favourite against an underdog who’s excited to be there with basically nothing to lose.

No offence to the Battle of Florida, but this is the best rivalry series of Round 1. Maple Leafs versus Senators is basically the best-case scenario in the NHL’s division-heavy playoff format. It’s a historic matchup that we’ve waited decades for, one where there’s genuine animosity between the fan bases and an intriguing matchup on the ice.

Plus some recent bad blood to up the interest level.

Anthony Stolarz on the upcoming Battle of Ontario: “It’s going to be a bloodbath. It’s going to be a war.”

— Joshua Kloke (@joshuakloke) April 16, 2025

Here are the five things I’m going to be watching the closest as we get ready for Sunday’s Game 1.

1. Which goalie will come out on top?

For all the talk about everything else in this series, goaltending could definitely be what decides it.

Both Anthony Stolarz and Linus Ullmark had strong seasons this year. In fact, over the past three years combined, Stolarz ranks sixth in the NHL in goals saved above expected and Ullmark sits third.

They’re fully capable, in other words, of stealing key games and being two of the better goalies in the league.

What they don’t have is much of a playoff track record. Stolarz has never started an NHL playoff game despite being 31 years old. Ullmark, meanwhile, has underwhelmed in nine career playoff starts, posting a 3-6 record with an .887 save percentage the past three postseasons with the Bruins.

Predicting which netminder will come out on top feels incredibly difficult, but Stolarz has been truly elite down the stretch and likely has the edge. If he falters, the Leafs still have Joseph Woll to count on.

2. Can the Senators limit the Leafs’ big guns?

Ottawa’s jump in the standings this season is largely a credit to its significant improvement in goals against, from 28th to 13th. New coach Travis Green was a factor and so was adding Ullmark.

But the Senators received some really strong defensive performances from their skaters, too. Artem Zub isn’t the household name leaguewide that Chris Tanev is for Toronto, but his ability to snuff out top offensive players started to approach that level in his fifth NHL season. (He finished top 20 among all D in defensive rating.)

Jake Sanderson’s continued evolution into a legitimate all-around No. 1 D — more so than anyone Toronto can roll out — has also been a key, too, as he’s not just an offensive weapon despite his youth (22).

Shane Pinto, Ridly Greig and Michael Amadio — Green’s most used trio at even strength this season — are likely to get the tough defensive assignments up front, and whether they can handle the head-to-head minutes against Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and sophomore net-front fire hydrant Matthew Knies will be pivotal to keeping this a close, long series.

The Senators appear overmatched at the top of the lineup, but finding ways to check Toronto’s best players into a draw in their minutes would be a big equalizer. The Leafs were the NHL’s third highest-scoring team (and third most potent power play) from Jan. 1 on, which on paper gives them the most sizable advantage of anything else in this series.

3. Does Ottawa have enough firepower to keep up?

On the flip side, the Senators offence was below average much of the season before picking up late in the year. Ottawa finished 19th in goals per game, better than only the badly injured Devils and Wild among teams that made the playoffs.

Part of that was underwhelming totals for their top players. Tim Stützle, who put up 39 goals and 90 points two years ago, topped out at just 24 and 79 to lead the Sens this season, making him one of only two Ottawa players to record more than 57 points this season.

And captain Brady Tkachuk managed only 55 points in 72 games.

Contrast that with Toronto’s Core Five up front, who all produced 27-plus goals and 58-plus points — including an impressive career high of 102 for Marner.

If there’s optimism for the Senators, it’s that trade deadline addition Dylan Cozens produced 16 points in 21 games after leaving Buffalo, and Pinto, Amadio and David Perron all started chipping in more goals over the final 30 games.

Plus, their power play — which gets more opportunities than any other team — converted at 25 percent post-deadline.

4. Will discipline be an issue? And for which team?

The Leafs’ penalty kill was one of the few things that was decidedly not good in a 108-point season. And it seemed to struggle more as the year went on, with a 26th-ranked 74.1 percent kill rate since Jan. 1.

Historically, Toronto has been beaten up short-handed again and again in the playoffs in the Matthews-Marner era, to the point it has allowed a ridiculous 43 power-play goals in 57 postseason games.

Add in the fact the Senators have been elite at drawing more penalties than they’ve taken this season at plus-41, tops among all playoff teams. The Leafs are minus-17 in that stat, better than only Montreal and Washington, and have players such as Max Domi and Simon Benoit who have been prone to being on the wrong side of the ref’s whistle far too many times. (Tkachuk has been guilty of the same for Ottawa.)

This is going to be a very emotionally charged, physical series so staying out of the box will be a huge key when things get heated.

5. Can the Leafs overcome the pressure of the past?

I didn’t mention this in section No. 2, as it deserves its own callout. None of these impressive regular-season scoring stats will matter much if the Leafs stars go cold when this series is on the line, which has been the trend in every series but one for this cast in Toronto.

The Leafs are going to have a ton of eyes on them, and it feels like they are being picked by just about everyone in the hockey world. But they’ve come up short as the favourites multiple times in the past — against weaker teams than these Sens — and there’s the added pressure of it being a decisive contract year for Marner and John Tavares, too.

If Ottawa is going to play spoiler here, its game plan has to be to keep things close and get the stars off their games, frustrating them and limiting their momentum. Try and make this a long, low-scoring series and then really put the pressure on in games 6 and 7. Bring the ghosts of playoffs past into play.

Florida and Boston gave them the template the past two years.

The Leafs have whiffed enough times that this will be a storyline right up until their best players show they can deliver when it matters most.

Prediction: Leafs in 7 

(Photo: Dan Hamilton / Imagn Images)

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