The 82-game dress rehearsal is officially over.
On Saturday night, the Leafs will kick off their first round series with the Boston Bruins.
Anthony Stewart filled in for Jay Rosehill on the Thursday edition of Leafs Morning Take. We kicked off the show by talking some Auston Matthews. On Wednesday, the 26-year-old was nominated for the King Clancy Award. Naturally, we talked about Toronto’s leadership core and if Matthews should be the captain of the team one day.
Presented by DoorDash, the Appetizer focused on game 82, an ugly 6-4 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning. Despite mustering 12 shots on goal, Matthews was unable to hit the 70 goal plateau and finished with 69 on the season. Meantime, we discussed Sheldon Keefe’s post-game comments about watching Bruins tape during the intermission and his breakdown of William Nylander’s final week of the regular season. In case you missed it, the quote belons in the Hall of Fame. For what it’s worth, Nylander, who finished the regular season mired in a nasty 11 game goalless drought, tallied just five measly points over his final 13 outings. Keefe isn’t concerned, though.
After that, we talked more about the Boston series. The Leafs will be in tough, but there’s no doubt they’re good enough to win this series (and beyond). Speaking of which, brought to you by Douglas, Claude Julien – the winningest coach in Bruins franchise history – dropped by the show. We got the 63-year-old’s thoughts on the series. He broke things down from the Leafs perspective very well.
Lastly, for the Great Clips inbox question of the week, we talked x-factors. Auston Matthews and Morgan Rielly were the two names brought to the table. Obviously, there were a bunch of suitable answer for this question. At the end of the day, the Leafs need to play like one cohesive unit, or it could be a short series. Plain and simple.
Jay Rosehill will be back in the mix for the Friday edition of Leafs Morning Take. We’ll give thoughts ahead of Game 1. Also, Zack Phillips, the host of TheLeafsNation After Dark will drop by for a visit.
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