from Michael Traikos of the National Post,

Playoffs or post-season?

Call it semantics, but there is a difference between the two this year. Depending on the team, it’s a rather big difference.

For the Toronto Maple Leafs, who will play the Blue Jackets in a best-of-five series, the Stanley Cup qualifiers might as well be the start of the playoffs. Win and they move on. Lose and they are out.

For the Boston Bruins, who will keep busy by playing in a four-team round robin to determine playoff seeding while the qualifiers are going on, the stakes are significantly lower. Win or lose, nothing really changes. Maybe that is why head coach Bruce Cassidy is treating the start of the post-season as more of a warm-up than anything else.

“The round robin gets you prepared for the playoffs,” Cassidy said in a Zoom conference call on Monday.

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