The Maple Leafs are heading to Washington D.C. to meet the President’s Trophy winners today, not the President, though. It’s the first meeting of these teams since last seasons’ playoffs where the Capitals eliminated the Leafs in the first round.
Rivalries are a funny thing. They can originate over time from a series of contested events, or they can arise from a single pivotal moment which makes one team a big winner, and the other a big loser.
A Bruins and Leafs rivalry developed from the former, kicked off by the Kessel trade, and further fueled by a few years of hapless Leafs teams losing badly to the “tough” Bruins who had won a Stanley Cup, allegedly with said toughness.