Who do the habs match-up the best against?

[glue]

Toronto fans seem to think MTL is the easiest matchup for them out of all the eastern conference and that they'll just walk over us. Even in the blowouts we've outshot them (had over 37 shots in every game) and even if we lost by a margin, I think they didn't dominate us in those games. We had the puck for most of the game, they simply were more opportunist.
Their team is slow, our guys can control the pace of the game and fly around them. As others said, their D is also very questionable and despite all the toughness they are trying to sell, they have lots of soft forwards (who appears to be their top 6)
And really is anyone scared of James Reimer? When the kid experience a playoff game in montreal we'll show what he's made of. Remember how Chara played at his worst in the Bell Centre when getting booed. Sure the same with happen to Reimer.
Bring me the Leafs to shut these kids down. 1st playoff series in almost 10 years and they are already getting way too cocky

I'm sure there are some disillusioned leaf fans who believe that we'll walk all over the Habs...but there's definitely enough of us who know it would be a very tough serious against the Habs...Price generally rises to the occasion..as does Subban..that being said...there are 2 main reasons even the realistic leaf fans want the Leafs to play the Habs:
1. Original 6 matchup and first time since 79...every game would likely have an even number of Habs/Leafs fans which would be unreal! And I think many leafs fans have close friends who are hab fans and vice versa...the trash talk/ball breaking would be awesome!
2. Out of the other possible matchups of Boston or Washington..most fans do think we'd have a better shot vs Montreal...doesn't mean the Habs suck and we'll walk over them...it just seems like we would match up better against them then the Bruins or Caps.

 

[Hackett]

Toronto fans seem to think MTL is the easiest matchup for them out of all the eastern conference and that they'll just walk over us. Even in the blowouts we've outshot them (had over 37 shots in every game) and even if we lost by a margin, I think they didn't dominate us in those games. We had the puck for most of the game, they simply were more opportunist.
Their team is slow, our guys can control the pace of the game and fly around them. As others said, their D is also very questionable and despite all the toughness they are trying to sell, they have lots of soft forwards (who appears to be their top 6)
And really is anyone scared of James Reimer? When the kid experience a playoff game in montreal we'll show what he's made of. Remember how Chara played at his worst in the Bell Centre when getting booed. Sure the same with happen to Reimer.
Bring me the Leafs to shut these kids down. 1st playoff series in almost 10 years and they are already getting way too cocky

I think there are probably 6 other playoff teams that would have the habs at or very near the top of their list as favourable first round opponents... so its not just the leafs.

Time and time again, we have seen that the regular season results have little correlation with what happens in the playoffs. My favourite example is when the habs went 8-0-0 against the bruins in 07/08 regular season, but required 7 games to dispose of them in the playoffs.

So if leaf fans want to use the regular season results as a measuring point, they might want to do some further research.

However, the team is not playing well right now. That's the best reason anyone would want to take on the habs in the first round, and you can't blame them.