David Pastrnak throws unexpected compliment toward Leafs

The Boston Bruins added to the postseason misery of the Toronto Maple Leafs, sending them home to yet another early offseason thanks to their Game 7 victory on home ice earlier this year after David Pastrnak deposited the game-winning goal past Ilya Samsonov shortly into sudden-death overtime. 

For the Leafs, it marked the 4th time since 2013 that they had dropped a deciding Game 7 against the Bruins on TD Garden ice, and the second in overtime. Meanwhile, the Bruins were able to advance to Round 2 one season after their record-setting campaign of 65 victories came to a shocking halt in Round 1 against the underdog Florida Panthers. 

But a recent comment from Pastrnak about the series is turning some head. As he puts it, the Leafs were the "better team on paper". 

"We proved a lot of people wrong, last year we were not even supposed to make the playoffs,” Pastrnak told Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman in his latest '32 Thoughts' column. “We beat a better team on paper (Toronto).”

It's an interesting comment from Pastrnak considering that Boston finished ahead of the Leafs in the standings by a full seven points, earning home ice advantage over them in the postseason. It wouldn't be long before Toronto-based writer Jeff Veillette called Pastrnak out for that exact reason on social media, stating: 

"Boston finished seven points higher in the standings, swept the season series, were the favourite in basically every betting market and didn’t have their two best players rotating out with injuries. In what world were they the underdog in that series?"

Regardless, fans of opposition Atlantic Division teams are hoping that this is finally the season that the Bruins take a step backward in the standings, something that many expected to happen last season following the departures of Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci. 

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