Game 1 of the Battle of Ontario will take place Sunday evening when the Toronto Maple Leafs host the rival Ottawa Senators.

The Leafs finished the season on a 9-1-0 tear, which allowed them to emerge victorious in a highly competitive Atlantic Division race and avoid a first-round matchup versus the Tampa Bay Lightning or Florida Panthers. While the Senators provide a much softer opponent on paper, Toronto is just 1-6-0 versus the Senators over the last two regular seasons.

I’ll detail the relevant game notes and outline my favourite betting angles below.

In what was realistically the third straight season in which Ottawa’s lengthy rebuild was supposed to be over, it finally lived up to the hype and snapped its seven-year playoff drought. As the Senators rebuild is fully complete and they likely will not have any more high draft picks coming anytime soon, you could argue they aren’t entirely playing with house money, but it’s fair to say all the pressure is on Toronto in this series.

While the Sens may be playing in somewhat of a road atmosphere in every game of this series, that may not be the worst thing. Road teams are 93-82 over the last two postseasons, and betting on them in each of those matchups would yield a +11.9% ROI. Excluding the 2021 bubble playoffs, road teams are 299-314 in the playoffs dating back to the 2015-16 postseason, which suggests home-ice advantage is minimal at best, given that the higher seeds play more home games, skewing the data.

Chances are the Senators will never win this series in short order, but they can certainly put the Leafs in a really uncomfortable spot if they can stretch the series to six or seven games and have the Leafs feeling a ton of pressure.

While the Senators lineup doesn’t have the same kind of truly elite offensive stars that the Leafs unit offers, there are some arguments that suggest it’s a unit capable of providing a tough out as it enters this series at full health. If Dylan Cozens can continue his strong play as a Senator in this series, Ottawa has a strong trio down the middle in Cozens, Tim Stutzle, and Shane Pinto.

Senators captain Brady Tkachuk plays a game tailor-made for the postseason, and after his dominant performance in the 4 Nations Face-Off, most observers are expecting he will be a force in this series. Leafs head coach Craig Berube will likely try to hard-match Auston Matthews’ line head-to-head versus Tkachuk’s unit as much as possible, and whichever line finds the most success in that matchup could be a key factor in dictating the winner of this series.

While the Leafs have the best shutdown pairing in this series with the combination of Chris Tanev and Jake McCabe, Jake Sanderson is arguably the most impactful defender from either side and will likely play massive minutes in all close game scripts. The Leafs would be wise to get their shots in on Sanderson as much as possible and make playing north of 25 minutes a grind for the young defender.

Over the last 15 games, the Senators hold an expected goal share of 51.8% and played to a strong record of 9-4-2. They have not dealt with as many injuries as the Leafs have this season, but they have missed some key pieces for extended periods of play and appear to be healthy at the right time.

While Anthony Stolarz was the best goaltender from either side by a fairly significant margin this season, Ullmark is a Vezina Trophy winner and at his best is more than capable of stealing the series for the Senators. Ullmark finished the season with a record of 12-3-0 in his final 15 games, with a 2.74 GAA. He held a +13.8 GSAx rating overall, and which ranked 13th among starters to play in over 25 games.

The time is now for the Leafs to prove that they are a different group this season under Berube. While this Leafs core has obviously failed to live up to expectations in recent playoff runs, it’s not like they have ever been thoroughly beaten in any series, and it appears that some of their previous weaknesses could be less fatal this postseason.

In a very closely contested series versus the Bruins last year, the Leafs power play was entirely ineffective, which was arguably the greatest reason they lost yet another series in which they actually carried more of the overall play at even strength. Toronto’s power play succeeded on 28.4% of opportunities in the 27 games that followed the 4 Nations Face-Off, and if it can remain comparably effective this postseason, the Leafs could be poised for a deep run.

By a wide margin, Stolarz had the best regular season of any goaltender that the Leafs have had during the ‘core-four’ era. Stolarz finished second in the league with a +25.8 GSAx rating, and on a per-game basis actually held a better goals saved above expected per 60 rating than Connor Hellebuyck.

In recent postseasons it had appeared as though the Leafs have played too passively and played ‘not to lose’ instead of using their lofty offensive upside to step on opponents’ throats in key moments. It’s a fine line, as obviously mistakes in key areas of the ice will lose games this time of year, but the Leafs have the more talented forward corps in this series and should be attempting to break out with possession as much as possible to let that strength shine through.

There are some valid arguments that suggest this postseason could be different for the Leafs, but -167 looks to be a pretty hefty number to lay to find out if the Leafs’ strong play will immediately convert to the postseason, where this core has always struggled to produce wins.

Especially because, as outlined, home-ice advantage has been highly overvalued in the betting markets for a huge sample of play, and Toronto, in specific, has not fared that well on home ice over the last two postseasons, with a record of 2-7-0.

Of the Leafs’ top offensive stars, Nylander has arguably been the best playoff performer and should benefit from some favourable matchups in this series. Nylander generated 18 shots in the four games he was able to play in during last year’s series versus the Bruins and recorded over 2.5 shots on goal in each game of the series.

At -139, I see value backing Nylander to generate over 2.5 shots on goal in Game 1, and would play it down to -144.