SIMMONS: Paul Maurice sees ‘no value’ in race for first place in the Atlantic Division​on March 31, 2025 at 5:38 pm

Paul Maurice is not fretting about first place in the Atlantic Division.

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Neither is Jon Cooper.

Both have been there before, won some Stanley Cups, and the previous time Cooper finished first overall in the NHL with his Tampa Bay Lightning, “we lost first round to Columbus. Something like that sticks with you for a while.”

This is a different season and a different Atlantic Division with the Maple Leafs currently in first place with some eight games to play to determine the winner, the playoff matchups and all that will be when the bright lights come on in late April in both Ontario and Florida.

The Leafs play the Stanley Cup champion Panthers on Wednesday night at Scotiabank Arena and then again next Tuesday in Sunrise. These could be huge division-settling games.

In between, they play the Lightning in Tampa. By next week, the first-place race could be settled but, either way, the Atlantic road to the Stanley Cup this year must travel through Toronto, Ottawa and two parts of Florida.

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“It’s tough,” said Maurice, coach of the reigning Stanley Cup champion Panthers. “You’re going to have to beat a team out of Ontario and you’re going to have to beat a team out of Florida to get to where you want to go. I see no value in (finishing first).

“And if you do that and win your games the door prize is the Washington Capitals, possibly … Washington the way they’ve played all year, or Carolina. Carolina was what, 8-2 in their last 10 games.

“Believe me, you’re not feeling comfortable playing any of these guys.”

This is a season in which there at least five teams in the East — Maurice might stretch that number to six — who are legitimate Stanley Cup contenders. He knows that the prize for finishing first in the Atlantic means a playoff bout with the Ottawa Senators.

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The truth is nobody wants to play a hungry, first-year playoff team like Ottawa. The Leafs don’t really want a Battle of Ontario. The Panthers don’t want a Battle of Tkachuk Brothers, assuming Matthew is healthy enough to play. But somebody’s getting home-ice advantage here and somebody is getting the Senators in the first round and there is no comfort in that.

Question is: How much does first place really mean in the big picture?

The year Cooper’s Lightning won the President’s Trophy with 128 points, they were 29 better than Craig Berube’s St. Louis Blues, who just happened to win the Stanley Cup in that surprising 2019 season.

Finishing first probably matters a little more to the Maple Leafs because of the history involved. The Leafs as a franchise don’t finish first very often. Since the NHL expanded beyond six teams, the Leafs have finished first just twice.

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Once in a full season. Once in the COVID-shortened, Canadian division season.

And that’s it.

Those are the banners you don’t worry about hanging anywhere.

The 2000 Maple Leafs were coached by Pat Quinn, captained by Mats Sundin, backstopped by Curtis Joseph and, in the playoffs, were led by the tenacity of the newly acquired Darcy Tucker. There was an Atlantic Division back then, but the Leafs didn’t play in it. They finished first in the Northeast with the third-best first-place finish in the East.

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Since then and before then, they’ve spent barely a day or two in first place at any time in any year. Except for the forgettable 56 games of the North Division, where all you can remember now is the Leafs coughing away the gift of their best Stanley Cup opportunity in decades.

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There are only six players — Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander, John Tavares, Morgan Rielly and Nick Robertson — who remain from the 2021 Leafs. The rest of the roster is new. The coaching staff is new. The management team is new. The goaltenders are new.

The memories are old and painful.

One of these years, maybe, will be the Maple Leafs year. Cooper, for one, has long been a fan of the Leafs talent. He had Marner on his Team Canada 4-Nations roster and watched Matthews and Nylander up close in the tournament.

He knows — hell, everybody knows — about the front-end talent on the Leafs and their playoff history of collapse. He also knows that one of these years, possibly, maybe, that will change.

Maurice doesn’t want to get into caught talking about the Big Three in the Atlantic, meaning the Panthers, Leafs and Lightning. He’s actually talking Big Four right now.

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“The second game of the year we played Ottawa. They beat us with a different game than they’d played before,” he said, then referencing how much better the Senators have become in their first season under coach Travis Green.

“They remind me of our team two years ago. They’re fast. They’re on you. They’ve taken some of the youthful parts out of their game. They put the puck in deep when they’re supposed to. They’re a legit team now.

“We want to finish first because we can. But if finishing first means you get Ottawa, that’s a toughie. I see no value in (finishing first) other than having home ice for two rounds.”

Or home ice for the Stanley Cup final.

Last year, the Panthers got to go home for Game 7 against Edmonton after losing Games 4, 5 and 6 to the Oilers. They needed home ice about then. They needed the solace the comfort of home to come up with a championship win.

A Florida team has played for the Cup in each of the past five seasons. An Ontario team hasn’t played for the Cup in 18 years. That was the Senators of 2007.

Which came, by the way, 40 years after the Leafs’ most recent championship.

ssimmons@postmedia.com

twitter.com/simmonssteve

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