John Tortorella may give the Blue Jackets an advantage over the Maple Leafs.

The National Hockey League is moving ever closer to resuming the 2019 - 2020 NHL season and as a result some players are starting to be asked questions about the opponents they are expected to face in the opening rounds of the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs. 

One of the matchups we will see during early on will be a clash between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Columbus Blue Jackets, a matchup that we may not have seen were it not for this 24 team playoff format. At the time of the season stoppage the Leafs appeared poised to meet the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of what we would traditionally consider the 16 team Stanley Cup Playoffs while the Blue Jackets would have squared up against the Boston Bruins. In theory facing one another should prove to be an easier challenge for both teams than either of those matchups, although I suspect that many will consider the Maple Leafs as favorites coming into this one. 

Columbus Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno doesn't think so however and the long time Blue Jackets forward recently made comments suggesting that the Blue Jackets may have a clear advantage over the Maple Leafs, an experienced NHL head coach that has had tenure behind the bench for several seasons now in the form of John Tortorella. 

"It's huge," said Foligno as per TSN. "In a shortened series I think the coach that knows his team best and knows how to get the quickest performance out of his team, you know, is going to have an advantage. The team that gets their minds to their identity is going to have an advantage. I'm sure Torts is dialled into that. He already has been. He's a big part of why we've had the success we've had."

It is true that Tortorella has significantly more experience at the NHL level than Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe, and perhaps even more importantly more playoff experience. Foligno revealed that Tortorella played a huge role in the shocking sweep of the Tampa Bay Lightning last season during the first round of the playoffs, stating that it was Tortorella who had dialed his team into the series.

"He was dead on, because nobody was expecting anything out of us and we all felt slighted, so he was right in there with us and saying, 'We don't take a backwards step to these guys, we go right at them,' and that's a big reason why we had the success in that series."

It is certainly an interesting perspective on the part of Foligno and it will be very interesting to see if coaching does become a major factor in this series.