Absolutely, the Leafs Madness: Final first round matchups

It’s the end of week one and we’ll close out the final two regions of our first round today. We’ve got Your Grandpa’s Leafs (the Leafs that won cups) and the False Hope Leafs (the Leafs that regularly lost in the Conference Finals). Arguably this makes up the best 75% of the franchise’s history.

Here’s are the tournament results so far…

And now your matchups…

Seems like a tall order for Ace Bailey to go up against probably the most universally loved Leaf, but we’ll see how this plays out.

Barilko is a big part of the Leafs history, but on the other hand there’s a picture of Turk Broda eating pancakes in his crease.

This is a very personal matchup for me. As it’s my Dad’s favourite player (Mahovlich) up against his favourite hockey story to tell me growing up (the legend of Bobby Baun).

George Armstrong captained the Leafs through their best years. King Clancy has a trophy named after him.

Conacher predates a lot of the history we talk about regularly, so he might be lower than his resume warrants. Kennedy a big part of the dynasty core.

Babe Dye is another player that might not factor in as much as he should because he’s a century removed from playing. Tim Horton was a solid defenseman who is now best known as a fast food chain.

Apps was a big part of the Leafs success in the 40s, and memorably walked away from that to go fight in World War Two. Red Kelly was a key piece in the 60s Leafs success.

Keon is going to walk away with this one, but that doesn’t change the fact that Busher Jackson was very good.

Poor Antropov. He doesn’t stand a chance.

Sundin’s best winger vs. Quinn’s best face puncher.

This is probably an age test. If you are over 40 you’re probably a bigger fan of Gill, if you are under 40, you’re probably a Tucker fan.

I’ve already heard from people that I’ve done Felix dirty with this matchup, so this could be a fun one to watch. I’m firmly in the Potvin camp, but Roberts isn’t going to be an easy win.

Early numbers on this had McCabe with a slight lead and my heart is breaking, as Andreychuk is one of my five favourite Leafs. I guess McCabe had the fun mohawk though.

Berezin was one of play-ins, and it will be interesting to see if Berezin Nation can pull off an upset against Curtis Joseph.

Not enough of you appreciate Kaberle on the level you should and I worry that Belfour could pull off the upset.

Well, Gilmour is going to be force, and we’ll likely heading towards an inevitable battle between Mats and Dougie, but at least Borschevsky got to participate.