We could finally get a Toronto Maple Leafs-Ottawa Senators playoff rematch
Living in Ontario in the early 2000s, springtime for Toronto Maple Leafs fans usually meant one thing: a matchup against the Ottawa Senators.
In 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2004, the teams met in the NHL playoffs in four epic playoff series dubbed the Battle of Ontario, in which Toronto ended up coming out victorious on four separate occasions.
Sure, the Leafs swept Ottawa in 2001, but the other three series were pretty gruelling for fans to watch: twice, they went to Game 7, and once, six games after initially being tied 2-2.
Heroes were made in Toronto, with players like Mats Sundin, Gary Roberts, and Darcy Tucker, while Ottawa stars like Daniel Alfredsson, Marian Hossa, and Radek Bonk all took turns as public enemy number one.
For a whole generation of Leafs fans, those four postseasons were all the bragging rights they could ever need over their provincial rivals, even if neither city has claimed the Stanley Cup for a combined 156 years.
It’s the kind of series that is front-page news for a two-week span, full of bets between mayors, corny song parodies on the news, and constant fighting on the internet (and likely in real life, too!). With all due respect to the Leafs’ American opponents, it’s hard to top the drama of facing off against a Canadian rival.
But since the NHL took a full-season lockout in the 2004-05 season, the Leafs and Senators haven’t come all that close to facing off in the postseason once again.
As things currently shape up in the NHL, we could be set for a rematch for the first time in 21 years, with the Leafs sitting second in the Atlantic Division and the Senators in third. If the playoffs began today, they’d be set up for a first-round series with Game 1 at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena.
Since 2004, the Senators have made the playoffs eight times, while the Leafs have done so on nine occasions. In only one of those years — 2017 — have both teams been in the playoffs simultaneously.
The Leafs were one point off of setting up a series against Ottawa that year, but otherwise, it’s mostly been these teams far off from the standings for the last two decades.
This year could also signal a change of the guard for the Atlantic Division, particularly if both the Tampa Bay Lightning and Boston Bruins are on the outside looking in. It would be a rarity for either team to miss: the Lightning have been out of the playoffs just once since 2013, while the Bruins have missed just twice since 2007.
Hockey fans across the province would likely welcome a playoff series against Ottawa. Toronto has played just one Canadian team in the postseason since 2004, when it lost seven games to the Montreal Canadiens in the pandemic-shortened 2021 season.
The Senators and Canadiens met in the 2013 and 2015 playoffs, but it’s been ten years since they’ve had a Canadian matchup.
And though the Leafs have the more recent history of playoff appearances — the Senators haven’t sniffed the postseason since their 2017 run to the Eastern Conference Finals — Ottawa might be favoured to come out on top despite being two points behind Toronto in the current standings.
MoneyPuck.com suggests that the Senators have better odds of making the second round, the conference final, the Stanley Cup Final, and winning the whole thing than the Leafs.
In any case, we’ll be watching to see whether such a series comes to fruition because we know it would be a blast to watch, regardless of the outcome.
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