Leafs eager to resume playoff rivalry with Habs
Weekend will determine if tradition of post-season games will be revived
TORONTO After he glanced around the dressing room on Friday, Mark Fraser nodded and said that, as far as he knew, he was the only member of the Toronto Maple Leafs capable of carrying a conversation in both of Canada’s official languages.
“I wouldn’t say I’m fluent, no,” the defenceman said with a sheepish grin. “But just from being in Ottawa, I studied it growing up. And then, just being so close to Quebec, I have a lot of francophone friends.” He smiled again. “I think a lot of my French is slang,” he said.
Fraser, the 26-year-old in his first full season with the Leafs, said he had never conducted an interview in French, but seemed to understand that could change very quickly. For the first time in a generation, the Leafs are poised to face the Montreal Canadiens in a playoff series. The enormity of that possibility filled the room where he stood.
“I have some expectations,” Fraser said with a smile. “But I’m sure it’ll exceed them all.”
The Leafs host the Canadiens in the season finale for both teams on Saturday. If the Leafs win, they would increase the odds of the first post-season meeting between the two teams since 1979, which was a year before the oldest player on Toronto’s roster was born.
“It’s a great rivalry when you play the Toronto-Montreal rivalry,” said Leafs coach Randy Carlyle. “It’s been in the history of the game for a long, long time.”
Toronto, making its first post-season appearance in nine years, has not beaten Montreal in the playoffs since the year it last won a Stanley Cup, in 1967. The Leafs won three series against the Canadiens in the 1960s, but have lost seven of their 13 all-time meetings.
There is still no guarantee the two will meet, of course.
If Montreal wins Saturday and the Boston Bruins lose their last two games — against the Washington Capitals on Saturday and the Ottawa Senators on Sunday — Toronto could face Boston in the first round.
If Toronto loses and the Senators win their final two games, the Leafs would drop to sixth place in the Eastern Conference, and would face the Capitals in the first round. According to the website sportsclubstats. com, though, the Leafs have a 92% chance of ending up in fifth, and the Canadiens have a 67% chance of ending in fourth.
And that would be one of the most anticipated first-round matchups in recent memory.
“The intensity is always going to bring a little bit of change,” said Carlyle. “We operate under the 20 per cent rule, that there’s going to be 20 per cent more expected of people. We’ve asked for people to be more than ordinary all year, so it doesn’t really change our template going into the playoffs.”
Carlyle ran the Leafs through a brief, but intense, on-ice workout on Friday. He had given players time to themselves during a swing through Florida and stressed the importance of rest heading into the playoffs.
Only 10 players on his roster have ever appeared in a playoff game.
“Everyone’s played playoff hockey before, maybe not in the NHL with this much tension and scrutiny,” said Leafs winger Joffrey Lupul. “But there certainly are some things that we’ll talk about. And I would expect that we’ll sit down for a pretty lengthy talk as a team when we figure out who we’re going to be playing.”
Lupul is one of those experienced players. The 29-year-old has appeared in 39 playoff games over his NHL career — with the Anaheim Ducks and the Philadelphia Flyers — and has emerged as one of the leaders in the dressing room.
“It’s still a hockey game,” said Lupul. “The intensity’s going to go up. The importance is obviously going to go up. But everyone in here’s a good player who knows how to play hockey. You’ve just got to elevate your game.”
Toronto has already taken three of four games from Montreal this season, including a 6-0 romp on Feb. 9 and a 5-1 rout earlier this month. Neither of those games involved the kind of attention that would be paid to the games played next week, though.
“It’s gonna be fun,” said Leafs forward Nazem Kadri. “Toronto and Montreal. That’s what everyone wants to see. But obviously, there’s still a couple more games to decide that.”