The Toronto Maple Leafs and Tampa Bay Lightning split two games in Toronto and will now fly to Florida for games three and four.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have the better team and stats from the last 82 games, but they also have a reputation as chokers, while the Lightning are back-to-back champs.
The calculous here favors the Lightning, at least among anyone I can find who isn’t also a Leafs supporter, and that’s completely understandable.
But the Leafs have proven they can hang with the champs, and I think the best way forward is to play their own game and not worry about their opponent.