Blue Jackets Fire a Shot at Maple Leafs Ahead of Potential First Round Playoff Meeting

By now, everyone is well aware of the Toronto Maple Leafs' lack of playoff success and it has truly become one of the bigger storylines - and incidentally, one of the bigger jokes - heading into the post-season on a yearly basis.

The Columbus Blue Jackets have decided to throw some shade towards the Maple Leafs in anticipation of what could be another fiery first round matchup.

The Blue Jackets' Instagram page responded to a post from the Spittin' Chiclets titled "Toronto sadness" with a comment of "we'd love the first round bye".

The Maple Leafs are a little familiar with the Blue Jackets when it comes to post-season hockey as they were ousted in the Qualifying Round during the COVID-bubble in 2020 when play resumed in the summer.

Columbus took Game 1 by a score of 2-0, Toronto then responded with a shutout win of their own in Game 2, before each team traded wins in the next 2 games to set up a winner take-all in Game 5.

The Blue Jackets made easy work of the Maple Leafs as they defeated them through another shutout win, this time by a score of 3-0. It was a back and forth series that could have gone either way but Toronto was definitely the heavy favourites entering the series.

As the playoff picture currently stands Columbus is just 1 point behind Ottawa for the top spot in the Wild Card but also just 4 points out of the third place in the Metropolitan Division, whereas Toronto is jockeying for top spot in the Atlantic Division.

There remains a possibility where the two face off in the first round of the playoffs this year but that would require Toronto to win the Atlantic and Columbus taking the first spot in the Wild Card race with Washington running away with the Eastern Conference lead.

It will be interesting to see what happens as we enter the final stretch of the regular season but should these two teams come to play one another in the first round, this post will assuredly come back to the forefront.