from Lance Hornby of the Toronto Sun,

This Maple Leaf playoff edition has no Darcy Tucker, but could have the Pucker Factor in its corner.

That’s coach Mike Babcock’s term for a tightness that a heavily favoured team, such as the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Washington Capitals, experience in certain lower body parts when the whole hockey world expects them to romp in the opening playoff series. The Caps are starting to hear how they’re the best team in the East never to win a Cup, lasting just one series last year and don’t want to think about an upstart team upsetting them.

So the Leafs are embracing that underdog role as they prepare to leave for Game 1 on Thursday, hoping to plant that seed of doubt and have it blossom like the spring cherry trees in D.C.

“That’s the whole key,” Babcock said Tuesday. “If you let (the Caps) get going, then they’re loose and driving. But that ‘pucker factor’ is an unbelievable thing. Until you’ve been the best seed, until you have your whole city expecting, you don’t know what’s that like and how good a defence that is for the underdog.”

Babcock has endured both sides of first-round foibles.

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