An early look at Blue Jackets vs. Maple Leafs

There's no way around it -- the storyline has already been set for whenever Columbus and Toronto hit the ice to resume the NHL season.

It'll be the plucky underdog that could, the blue-collar Blue Jackets, against the most talked about team in hockey, the glamourous, high-flying, high-dollar Maple Leafs.

Grit vs. skill in perhaps its most pure essence, as a team that placed third in team defense but 28th in scoring (Columbus) takes on the squad that placed third in scoring but 26th in defense (Toronto) in a best-of-five series to enter the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

And with those numbers, it's kind of hard to despite that narrative, though the Blue Jackets will be more than happy to remind you they can put the puck in the net, too, while the Maple Leafs will surely say in the leadup to whenever these games happen that they can play defense when the chips are down.

But with all that in mind, this series might just come down to what Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno said this week.

"I feel like for us or any team really that's going to jump into the play-in round, it's going to be who gets to their game the fastest," Foligno said. "That's going to be the main focus of our routine -- what makes you good, what makes you successful this season and how quickly you can get your team wrapped around that."

The matchup comes after the NHL announced Tuesday that the regular season is over and that the league will attempt to get back to action later this summer if conditions surrounding the coronavirus allow it to. Toronto (36-25-9) and Columbus (33-22-15) tied with a .579 points percentage thanks to 81 points in 70 games and will hold the Nos. 8 and 9 seeds, respectively, in the Eastern Conference in the 24-team return to play format the league and players association have agreed upon.

Looking back at the season series

The two teams split their matchups this year, and both took place in October (with a third game scheduled for March 21 in Toronto now canceled). In what was the Blue Jackets' season and home opener Oct. 4, Toronto earned a 4-1 victory, while Columbus trekked north of the border Oct. 21 to claim a 4-3 overtime win.

Oct. 4: Toronto 4, Columbus 1. A sellout crowd filled Nationwide Arena to see the new-look Blue Jackets but left disappointed after the Leafs pulled away to the win thanks to a pair of power-play goals. Mitch Marner started the scoring in the first with a man-up tally past Joonas Korpisalo in the first, while Cody Ceci doubled the lead in the second. Cam Atkinson scored the first CBJ goal of the year in the second on the power play to make it 2-1, but the Leafs slammed the door with third-period goals from Marner and Auston Matthews. Marner finished with three points in the contest.

Oct. 21: Columbus 4, Toronto 3 (OT).The Blue Jackets turned the tables with a 4-3 victory in OT on Gustav Nyquist's penalty shot goal in a wild affair in Scotiabank Arena. Riley Nash took advantage of a turnover to score an early shorthanded goal and Pierre-Luc Dubois' individual effort made it 2-0 just 5:51 into the game, but Kasperi Kapanen and Matthews tallied past Korpisalo to make it 2-2 before the end of the first. William Nylander gave Toronto its first lead of the game with a goal late in the second, but Alex Wennberg jammed home a rebound on the power play with 9:51 left to make it 3-3. Then, in overtime, Nyquist was hooked on a breakaway and awarded a penalty shot, which he buried past Frederik Andersen for the first-ever penalty shot OT winner in CBJ history.

Three key questions about the series

1. Who controls the pace? OK, the narrative of the offensive juggernaut vs. the defensive dynamos isn't going to go away, and there's reason behind it. Consider -- the Leafs have given up at least six goals in a game 10 times this year, while the Blue Jackets haven't scored six in a game. Meanwhile, Columbus has seven shutouts, while the Leafs were blanked just once and scored at least five goals 16 times. As Foligno said, whoever gets to their game will have the advantage, and that can be boiled down to whether the games are wide open or more tight checking. Traditionally, it's harder to score in playoff situations, which would benefit the Jackets, but will all the time off mean skill has an advantage? It will be fascinating.

2. Who wins the coaching matchup? John Tortorella is one of the deans of NHL coaching with a Stanley Cup and 10 other postseason appearances under his belt, while Toronto's Sheldon Keefe is in his first year as the head man at the NHL level. That's not to take anything away from Keefe as much as it is to point out this isn't Tortorella's first go-round, and this series looks to be right in his wheelhouse. Tortorella has admitted he chafed at how all the attention going into last year's playoffs was on Tampa Bay, and he instilled an us-against-the-world mentality in the Blue Jackets (remember the "no backsteps" video?). With Toronto serving as the de facto center of the hockey universe, you can already see how the Jackets will be portrayed going into this one, and that will pay into Tortorella's hands.

3. How much will the return to health help the Blue Jackets? The constant storyline of the CBJ season was on the injury front, and Columbus was missing such names as Seth Jones, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Cam Atkinson, Dean Kukan, Alexandre Texier and Nathan Gerbe leading up to the pause. All of those should be good to go when play resumes, and that's some real talent to return to the mix. But it's also worth pointing out the injuries seemingly helped Columbus find its game this year, as lesser heralded players -- like Gerbe -- stepped up and the team find its identity. Still, it's better to have your big guns ready to go, and it looks like Columbus will.

Toronto fast facts

Matthews led the Maple Leafs in goals and points with a 47-33-80 line, while Marner had a 16-51-67 line in 59 games. John Tavares adds 26 goals and 60 points, while Nylander was second on the team with 31 goals among his 59 points. … University of Michigan product Zach Hyman, who was college teammates with Zach Werenski, added 21 goals. … Like Columbus, Toronto will also benefit from the time off on the injury front, as defensemen Morgan Rielly (who led NHL blueliners with 20 goals in 2018-19), Jake Muzzin and Ceci should be back from injuries. … Goalie Andersen seems ticketed to be between the pipes as he posted a 29-13-7 record in 52 starts while having a 2.85 GAA and .909 save percentage.