Insider reveals why he isn't picking the Leafs to beat Tampa
The Leafs head into their series against Tampa as the favourites this season, but that hasn't stopped the majority of people from picking Tampa to end the Leafs' season early once again. One of those people is Daily FaceOff's Frank Seravalli and his reasoning is... well, understandable, if it was last year.
Seravalli said that he picked the Leafs the past two playoffs to beat the Habs and Lightning. He then explained that he is choosing Tampa this time around because he isn't "convinced the Leafs have the stone cold killer to get through and until they do it, I refuse to pick them."
Seravalli is essentially every Leaf fan right now, still questioning their ability to close out a series as they were up 3-1 against the Habs in 2021 and 3-2 against Tampa last year and failed to shut the door both times. The difference this season, is that the Leafs are constructed more like a playoff team thanks to Kyle Dubas' wheeling and dealing at and around the trade deadline where he brought in the likes of Luke Schenn, Erik Gustafsson, Jake McCabe, Noel Acciari, Sam Lafferty and Ryan O'Reilly - all players with sand paper, grit, physicality and some with playoff experience.
We will find out over the next 14 days if the Leafs can finally get over the hump with Game 1 taking place tonight in Toronto.
