The Toronto Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins renew their bitter rivalry with their first meeting of the 2024-2025 regular season at TD Garden on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; NHLN, NESN, SNP, SNO, CBC).

Every team is still looking for its form in the beginning.

The Maple Leafs (4-4-0) have lost two straight games and three of four. In those three losses – against the New York Rangers, Columbus Blue Jackets and St. Louis Blues – Toronto was outscored 15-4. New coach Craig Berube, who replaced Sheldon Keefe in the offseason, was demonstrably unhappy during a 5-1 loss to the Blues, his former team, on Thursday. Center Auston Matthews scored three goals in eight games after scoring an NHL career-high 69 last season.

The Bruins (3-4-1) have gone 0-2-1 in their past three games, including a 4-0 loss Tuesday at the Nashville Predators, who were without a win to that point. On Thursday they lost 5-2 at home to the Dallas Stars. Besides forwards David Pastrnak (five goals) and Cole Koepke (three), no other player on the roster has more than two goals. Captain Brad Marchand has not scored a goal in eight games.

To say the game is huge for both sides is an understatement.

But these two teams bring out the best in each other, especially since meeting semi-regularly in the Stanley Cup Playoffs in 2018. They have faced each other in the first round three times in the past seven postseasons and Boston has emerged with a seven-game series victory each time.

Last season, Pastrnak scored in overtime of Game 7 to send Toronto home early again. But the Bruins lost in the second round to the Florida Panthers, the eventual Stanley Cup champions.

Each team spent the offseason trying to plug holes in the game and bring in new players. They have all struggled to find consistency early in this campaign.

So it’s difficult to know which team has improved the most and which new additions could have the biggest impact on this bitter rivalry and on the season as a whole. But that’s the argument that staff writers Amalie Benjamin and Mike Zeisberger tackle in the most recent episode of State Your Case.

Benjamin: I still think it’s Boston. Yes, yes, I know I live here. But I also have some confidence in what the Bruins are building, the improvements they’ve made specifically on the defensive side of the puck, and the possibilities for a team that has a ton of punch on the blue line. I will say that I didn’t expect Boston to rank 24th in the NHL in goals against per game (3.43), after finishing tied for fifth last season (2.70). Adding Nikita Zadorov, who provides the kind of punch the Bruins may have been missing, should only be a boon for a team that still has championship aspirations. With Zadorov, every member of the Boston defense is 6-foot-1 or taller, mobile and can potentially increase his offensive output if things go well. However, at the moment there is a lot of room to grow in defense.

Zeisberger: I actually agree with your logic when it comes to the improvements made by the Bruins. To me, Boston’s biggest needs were a top center and some grunt on the back end, and those were addressed in Elias Lindholm and Zadorov. The reason I’m here supporting the Maple Leafs has nothing to do with anyone on the ice and everything to do with the man behind the bench. Sheldon Keefe was a very good coach in the regular season, but could never get Toronto over the postseason hump, especially against the Bruins. This is a Boston franchise that has defeated Toronto in four straight Game 7s. Clearly, the Bruins are on the minds of Toronto players. Then comes Craig Berube, who was hired as Keefe’s replacement on May 17. It’s already clear that his north-south style, where everyone is accountable, is the kind of blueprint that can equate to post-season success. When he won the Stanley Cup with the St. Louis Blues in 2019, he was even on the ice at TD Garden, winning a Game 7 along the way. That was proof that Berube was not intimidated by other teams or the arenas in which they played to play. Can he get his players to buy in and get the same feeling? That is the pressing question.