The Ottawa Senators bumped into an avalanche of their first playoff game since 2017. Within the Battle of Ontario, the top-seeded Toronto Maple Leafs were energized by their home crowd and jumped everywhere in the Sens, cruising to a 6-2 victory to get their nose out in front on this first-round series.
As expected, the Maple Leafs’ crowd was on fire as Toronto has a likelihood to make a deep playoff run for the primary time in an extended time. The Leafs have only won one playoff series since 2004, so their fans are hungry for fulfillment. One common theme of Game 1 was the Toronto faithful going at Senators star Brady Tkachuk with “Brady sucks!” chants throughout the sport.
Tkachuk himself doesn’t care in any respect in regards to the chants. After the sport, Ottawa head coach Claude Giroux also chimed in on the Leafs fans during Game 1, via Chris Johnson of The Athletic.
“In my eyes it is a compliment for Brady. I mean they do not do this if he actually sucks,” Giroux said. “I’ve gotten booed in Pittsburgh before and, I will be honest, it was the most effective games to play.”
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Tkachuk is just getting his feet back under him after coming back from an upper-body injury that kept him out for a big a part of the top of the regular season, and you could possibly tell throughout the Game 1 loss. The star winger did not have his usual impact and didn’t record some extent in his playoff debut.
In an effort to come back and make this a series, the Senators will need their captain to indicate up and play his best hockey. In the course of the regular season, Tkachuk scored 55 points (29 goals, 26 assists) in 72 games. If he doesn’t start producing, this could possibly be a fast series.
Perhaps the quips from the Toronto fans will fire Tkachuk up and permit him to start out imposing his will on this series. The Leafs had taken a 2-0 lead inside the first 13 minutes of Game 1, so the Senators didn’t even have time to get their feet wet in the sport. Nevertheless, Claude Giroux and company still have a giant likelihood to steal a game on the road and return home with a split in Game 2 on Tuesday night.
