The Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs are competing with one another, but they’re also battling ghosts.
For the Leafs, it’s a decade of underwhelming performances in the playoffs, especially at home.
For the Bruins, it’s the haunting memories of blowing a 3-1 series lead to the Florida Panthers last spring after Boston put together one of the most impressive regular seasons in NHL history.
The pressure will be ratcheted up on both clubs Thursday night as the Leafs look to come back from 3-1 down to force a Game 7 in Boston on Saturday.
The game is essentially priced as a coin flip at the time of writing Thursday.
Bruins vs. Maple Leafs Game 5 prediction
The Leafs earned a gutsy, 2-1, win in overtime in Game 4 with great goaltending and a much better 200-foot game.
Toronto established a forecheck and kept the Bruins pinned in their own zone for plenty of time in the first 40 minutes of the contest and goaltender Joseph Woll was there when Boston started to push back in the third period.
It was a terrific effort from the Leafs, who were missing Auston Matthews and had their backs against the wall.
On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine the Bruins playing worse than they did in the first half of Game 5. Boston wasn’t connected at all and seemed tight in the moment, which led to plenty of unforced errors and very little flow.
The encouraging signs for the Bruins are that they were still able to hold Toronto’s offense in check and goaltender Jeremy Swayman was terrific, but they’ll need to be a lot better out of the gates Thursday if they want to avoid a Game 7.
Betting on the NHL?
Neither side has been able to find much space to create in this series so far and I would imagine we see a pretty tight game break out from the drop of the puck Thursday.
There’s plenty of pressure on both teams, so it wouldn’t be a shock if the start to this contest is cagey and has very little rhythm.
That puts plenty of value on the first period to end in a 0-0 tie.
The Bet: 1P Under 0.5 goals (+370, FanDuel)