Poll: Celtics and Bruins 1st round playoff predictions

It's set to be a busy weekend at the T.D. Garden with both the Bruins and Celtics beginning their postseason quests roughly 17 hours apart.

The Bruins get things going first Saturday night at 8 p.m. when they welcome the Toronto Maple Leafs to Beantown. Much has been made of the Bruins potentially angering the hockey gods and toying with their standing at the end of the season, after back-to-back losses to close the regular season ensured a first round matchup vs. the Leafs, instead of what looked to be an almost certain date with the Tampa Bay Lightning.

But the facts are the facts, and whether the Bruins intentionally took a dive to get Toronto first, can they be blamed if they did? The Leafs have not beaten the B's in 530 days (since 11/5/22). Boston has won 7-straight against Toronto, a streak that began on 1/14/23, and the Leafs last beat the Bruins in the playoffs in the 1959 semifinals (65 years, or 23,753 days, ago).

That being said, despite more than a half-century of playoff dominance against their Canadian Original Six counterpart, the all-time playoff record between the franchises is 42-40-1. Despite not besting the Bruins in a postseason series in all that time, the last three meetings (2013, '18 and '19 first round) have all gone a full seven games.

The Leafs are no slouches. They won 46 games this year, one fewer than Boston, tallied 102 points and boast the game's top goal scorer in Auston Matthews, whose 69 goals this year are the most by any player since Mario Lemieux scored 69 in the 1995-96 season.

Meanwhile, the Bruins ended the regular season 6-6 in their last 12 and 16-17 overall in their last 33 games. Can the B's shake their end-of-year rust to best the Leafs yet again?

Then about 14 hours after the Bruins and Leafs leave the ice late Saturday night, the Celtics begin their long awaited playoff run Sunday at 1 p.m.

While the C's still await their opponent (the winner of tomorrow night's Miami vs. Chicago play-in game) Boston's yellow brick road has already been paved through the Eastern Conference playoffs.

In all likelihood, Miami will be the first round opponent. Jimmy Butler suffered an MCL injury in last night's 105-104 play-in loss vs. Philadelphia and is set to miss multiple weeks. The Heat should have enough to get past a bad Chicago squad, but the C's should have little in the way of issues in Round 1. Then, it's either Cleveland or Orlando in Round 2, and the possibility of an erratic Bucks squad (depending on Giannis' health), the Knicks (is anyone truly scared of the Knicks?) or possibly Philadelphia at that point in the bracket (that could give me some pause).

But we're only talking about the first round at the moment, and no matter who Boston's opponent ends up being, I don't see it being a lengthy series.