NHL Game 1

Tampa bay lightning at toronto maple leafs

     Tonight, the series begins between the Lightning and the Maple Leafs in Toronto. The Leafs ended the season with a record of 50-21-11 while the Lightning finished with a record of 46-30-6. While at home this season the Leafs have been crazy good with a 27-8-6 record. The Lightning on the road have been less than impressive as they are 18-22-1 at the opposing teams’ stadiums. The Lightning are looking to turn things around on the road tonight and who better to do it against than the Dallas Cowboys of the NHL.

    The Tampa Bay Lightning were God awful in their last 25 games of the season. They lost 15 of their last 25 games of the season which is not exactly what you want to see when a team is going into the playoffs. Luckily for them they are playing against the worst playoff team possibly ever. The Toronto Maple Leafs have not won a playoff series since 2004.

They have made the playoffs every year since 2017 and have failed to win a series in any of these years. There is a little trend going where the Leafs lose two of the first games in the series and then win the first game. This trend predicts that they will be losing the game against the Lightning tonight. With all of this being said, if the Maple Leafs will ever win a playoff series again, this would be the year it would happen. Right before the trade deadline, the Leafs acquired players like Ryan O’Reilly and Sam Lafferty to create some depth in their line-up. With this depth and the talent that they have, they should be able to make a deep run in the playoffs, but they probably won’t.
    There are many reasons why I would like to pick the Leafs to win the matchup tonight. But I am a trend follower type of guy. And as I told you before the trend points to the Leafs losing the first game of this series. Although I think that they may be winning the series for the first time since 2004, I don’t believe they will win tonight.
 
Hammer: Lightning ML
 
Hammer: TB/Tor o6

 - Jacob