State Your Case: Maple Leafs or Bruins more improved this season

The Toronto Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins renew their bitter rivalry with their first meeting of the 2024-25 regular season at TD Garden on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; NHLN, NESN, SNP, SNO, CBC).

Each team is still looking to find its form in the early going.

The Maple Leafs (4-4-0) have lost two straight and three of four. In those three losses — to the New York Rangers, Columbus Blue Jackets and St. Louis Blues — Toronto has been outscored 15-4. New coach Craig Berube, who replaced Sheldon Keefe in the offseason, was demonstrably unhappy during a 5-1 loss to the Blues, his former team, on Thursday. Center Auston Matthews has three goals in eight games after scoring an NHL career-high 69 last season.

The Bruins (3-4-1) have gone 0-2-1 in their past three games, including a 4-0 loss Tuesday at the Nashville Predators, who were without a victory to that point. They then lost 5-2 to the Dallas Stars at home on Thursday. Other than forwards David Pastrnak (five goals) and Cole Koepke (three), no other player on the roster has more than two goals. Captain Brad Marchand has yet to score a goal in eight games.

To say the game is huge for each side is an understatement.

But these two teams bring out the best in each other, especially since they started meeting semi-regularly in the Stanley Cup Playoffs in 2018. They have squared off in the first round three times in the past seven postseasons and Boston has emerged with a seven-game series victory each time.

Last season, Pastrnak scored in overtime of Game 7 to send the Toronto home early yet again. But the Bruins lost to the Florida Panthers, the eventual Stanley Cup champion, in the second round.

Each team spent the offseason trying to plug holes in its game, bringing in new players. Each has struggled to find consistency early in this campaign.

So it’s hard to know which team has improved the most and which new additions may have the biggest impact on this bitter rivalry and the season as a whole. But that is the argument staff writers Amalie Benjamin and Mike Zeisberger tackle in the most recent installment of State Your Case.

Benjamin: I still think it’s Boston. Yes, yes, I know I’m based here. But I also have some faith in what the Bruins are building, the improvements they’ve made specifically on the defensive side of the puck and the possibilities for a team that packs a heck of a lot of punch on the blue line. I will say that I didn’t expect Boston to be tied for 24th in the NHL in goals against per game (3.43) after finishing tied for fifth last season (2.70). Adding Nikita Zadorov, who provides the kind of thump the Bruins may have been missing, should only be a boon to a team that still has championship aspirations. With Zadorov, every member of the Boston defense is 6-foot-1 or taller, is mobile, and can potentially increase his offensive output, should things break right. Right now, though, there’s a lot of room to grow on defense.

Zeisberger: I’m actually on board with your logic when it comes to the improvements made by the Bruins. For me, Boston’s biggest needs were top-end center and some growl on the back end, and they addressed each in Elias Lindholm and Zadorov. The reason I back the Maple Leafs here has nothing to do with anyone on the ice and everything to do with the man behind the bench. Sheldon Keefe was a very good regular-season coach but could never get Toronto over the postseason hump, especially against the Bruins. This is a Boston franchise that has defeated Toronto in four consecutive Game 7s. It’s obvious the Bruins are in the heads of Toronto players. Enter Craig Berube, who was hired as Keefe’s replacement on May 17. It’s already obvious his north-south, everyone-is-accountable style is the type of blueprint that can equate to postseason success. In fact, when he hoisted the Stanley Cup with the St. Louis Blues in 2019, it was on the ice at TD Garden, winning a Game 7 on the road. That was evidence of Berube not being intimidated by other teams or the arenas in which they play. Can he get his players to buy in and feel the same way? That’s the pressing question.