Five Thoughts for Friday: Battle of Ontario Edition

Ahead of Sunday's Game 1 of this fifth edition of the Battle of Ontario, here are what I see as the five biggest questions facing the Ottawa Senators:

Can Shane Pinto's line handle Auston Matthews?

It's a truism of play-off hockey that you need a good checking line in order to succeed. Unless you have a Patrice Bergeron or Anze Kopitar-level crusher on your first line, the typical strategy is to try to get your top defensive trio against the opposition's biggest offensive threat and hope that your scorers can get loose when they get their chances. For a team as top-heavy as the Toronto Maple Leafs, the need to stymie their first line is of the utmost importance. Enter Shane Pinto and co.

Pinto's had very successful 2024-25 campaign, driving goal and chance differentials at 5v5 despite being fed tough deployment and match-ups. At the outset of this series, Travis Green appears poised to have Pinto saddle up with Ridly Greig and Michael Amadio. This type of deployment is exactly why Steve Staios signed Amadio, and it's, frankly, what Greig was born to do. I'm not sure that it's going to be possible to completely neutralize a player as good as Matthews, but this trio might be able to keep him in check.

Can the Cozens line continue their hot scoring at 5v5?

If Pinto is matching up almost exclusively against the Matthews trio, and the Tim Stützle line draws John Tavares' second unit, then it stands to reason that Dylan Cozens, Drake Batherson, and David Perron will be left with the scraps. As Trevor mentioned in his series preview this morning, no one should be afraid of the Leaf's third line – and certainly not their fourth. Cozens, Batherson, and Perron have not always been ahead on the shot clock, but they've been better at generating chances this season, and they've been converting the chances they do create at an impressive clip. The line's 3.23 GF/60 at 5v5 is a full goal ahead of the 2.22 pace that the team scores at without them. Batherson and Cozens are both capable of a high level of skill, the type of game-breaking ability that can help escape the muck of tight play-off checking. They're likely to get favourable match-ups and deployments, potting a few goals would go a long way towards the Sens emerging victorious.

Is Linus Ullmark Ready to Clutch Up?

Maybe the biggest reason that the Leafs have only won one measly play-off series during the Matthews era is the recurring disappearing act put on by their captain, Mitch Marner, and Morgan Rielly. One or two bad series can be explained away by misfortune but at this stage there are a lot of hard questions that aren't being answered by Toronto's top guns. For Ottawa, though, it must be said that Linus Ullmark has not exactly covered himself in glory during his three trips to the postseason. He started nine play-off games for the Boston Bruins, posting a 3-6 record, a 3.59 GAA and an .887 SV%. Frankly, those numbers are not very good!

Is he forever doomed to be a clutch-less loser? I'm not worried about that. Ullmark's been one of the best goalies in the league for the better of six seasons, and Staios acquired him to be the guy to push them over the top in exactly this type of match-up. It feels reductive to say it, but sometimes winning or losing is as simple as whether your goalie shows up. Sens fans are all hoping that Ullmark's time to break out of his play-off doldrums is now.

Will the Refs call the penalties?

This isn't a case of me being worried that the Leafs will get a favourable whistle, but rather that one of the Sens' biggest strengths (drawing penalties) might be muted by the accepted practice of referees swallowing their whistles in April. The Sens have three players, Tkachuk, Greig, and Stützle who are incredible at drawing power plays but in the post-season the refs tend to give offsetting penalties to avoid favouring one team or another. I'm not really sure that I have a prescriptive solution here, but staying on the refs' good side throughout the proceedings so that they actually make the calls they should be making could prove to be of great importance.

Are Jake Sanderson and Thomas Chabot up to playing big play-off minutes?

The area in which the Sens have the biggest advantage is on the blue line. Jake Sanderson has somehow gotten even better this season, and Thomas Chabot, finally fully healthy, has gone through a renaissance season. Both are game-breakers and a clear notch ahead of any Leafs defender. That said, this is the first trip to the post-season for both and they are probably going to be asked to play close to 25 minute each per game. The top players play more in the post-season regardless of roster composition, but in Ottawa's case the third pair has been a weakness all year. I don't expect to see them playing more than 10-12 minutes in extremely sheltered conditions.

The good news for the Sens is that Sanderson and Chabot both appear to be healthy, and are absolute horses. If there are two guys to pick to do the kind of heavy lifting that's going to be asked of them, these are they. Can they maintain a high level of effectiveness with the increased burden, under the tight scrutiny of the play-offs?