Maple Leafs vs. Bruins Game 5 Prediction: Stanley Cup Playoffs Odds
Could this be the end of the current Leafs era? That’s the question fans are asking following Toronto’s 3-1 loss against the Boston Bruins on Saturday night. Trailing 3-1 in the series and headed to hostile territory for Game 5, the Leafs might be one loss away from blowing up the roster, coaching staff and front office in the off-season.
Boston opened as a -160 favourite to win on the NHL odds, with the total set at 5.5.
Maple Leafs vs. Bruins NHL Betting Odds
The confidence has to be low in Leafs Land right now. They’ve lost 10 of their last 11 games against the Bruins and they’ve been held to less than three goals in eight of the last 10 head-to-heads. The one positive to point to is Toronto’s 3-2 win in Boston in Game 2 of this series.
Oddsmakers are pretty clear on how they expect this series to end. After the series line opened as a near pick’em, Boston is now a massive -1200 favourite to win on the NHL futures board, while the Leafs are +750 underdogs. If you’re looking to get the B’s at plus-money, you can take them to win in exactly six games at +300 or seven games at +550. Or, if you want to throw your money away you could take Toronto to win in seven games at +700. No judgement here, delusion Leafs fans.
Toronto Maple Leafs
It’s pretty rare to be able to point to the exact moment a team mentally or emotionally crumbles, but we saw it from Toronto in Game 4 when cameras picked up an argument on the bench between Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander. Marner went on to score the Leafs’ only goal of the game and his first of the series. Toronto’s power play continues to be the biggest issue for the team after going 0-for-3 in Game 4. The Leafs, who had the seventh-best power play in the NHL during the regular season (24.0 per cent), have scored on just one of 14 opportunities in this series.
While Nylander returned to the ice in Game 4 after missing the first three games of the series, there’s new concern as Matthews left after the second period on Saturday and didn’t practice on Monday. If Matthews can’t go for Game 5 it would obviously be a massive loss for Toronto. The star sniper, who led the NHL with 69 goals in the regular season and scored the winning goal in Game 2, is dealing with an illness that appears to be worse than the team originally thought.
Boston Bruins
Brad Marchand continues to make Leafs fans’ lives miserable as he scored the game-winning goal on Saturday night. David Pastrnak and former Leaf James van Riemsdyk also scored. To add insult to injury, Marchand’s tally made him the Bruins’ all-time leading playoff goalscorer with 56 in his career. Jeremy Swayman made 24 saves in net for his seventh straight victory against Toronto.
The main unknown for Boston right now is who will start in net for Game 5. After Swayman started in Games 1 and 3 and Linus Ullmark started in Game 2, the Bruins abandoned the back-and-forth rotation they have been using all year and played Swayman in Game 4, although both goalies have played well in the series. Ullmark turned aside 31 of 34 shots faced in Game 2, but Swayman probably has the edge to start on Tuesday because of his long win streak against Toronto and his .956 save percentage through three games of the playoffs.
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