I knew this series was going to come eventually. As a staff writer for both Pension Plan Puppets and Raw Charge, it’s been both awesome and terrible to cheer for the Maple Leafs and Lightning these past few years. Most of the awesome goes in the Tampa direction, most of the terrible in the Leafs direction when it comes to the playoffs. I thought this eventual series where my two hockey fandoms crossed would be in the second round sometime in the past four years, but it turns out it’ll be in the first round this year.

I really hope I don’t look narcissistic, but here is myself, a Leafs fan, interviewing myself, a Lightning fan, about the upcoming Leafs vs. Lightning series. Thanks to TomK421 and JerseyLeaf in the comments for some additional questions after I broke my brain.

How are Lightning fans feeling ahead of the series?

There’s been a lot of talk about the playoff probabilities posted by various sources this past weekend. All of them have the Leafs as strong favourites, which is ticking off a lot of people. There are reasons for it, namely all those models only look at this season and just try to be objective, leaving the narrativizing to others. Somehow, the narrative has snuck towards “big media doesn’t believe in us” or “models are useless,” both of which are unsurprising. The fans who get it brush it off.

In terms of real stuff, Bolts fans know the Leafs are going to be a tough out, but they know their team can win series (specifically four in a row, twice) and they’re confident about that. They’ve beaten tough teams before, I think Bolts fans see the Leafs are more-or-less like the Hurricanes or Panthers from recent years, except less chippy, which is probably very true.

What are the Lightning’s strengths?

Andrei Vasilevskiy can absolutely shut down an elimination game on the majority of nights. The Bolts can use him to win 1-0, 2-0, 2-1. It’s really impressive what he can do on such a consistent basis. He has stinkers, that’s for sure, but he comes back even better.