CFL East Final Preview: Montréal Alouettes (9-9) at Toronto Argonauts (11-7)

Grey Cup/Coupe Grey

CFL East Final: Montréal Alouettes  at Toronto Argonauts

Tomorrow, the big final in the East, as the Alouettes visit Toronto to take on the Argonauts. The loser sees the end of their season, while the winner earns the right to go to the Grey Cup. So there is a lot riding on this one.

Now, Toronto has been the best team in the East all season long. To be fair, Toronto is not nearly as dominant in the East to the extent that Winnipeg has dominated the West. Still, they have been the best team in the East right from the start of the season. That is the reason that this game is being played in Toronto, after all.

The Argos have been 5-4 at home, while the Alouettes have an identical 5-4 record on the road. So very little to go on there. No decisive advantage in that regard.

So then let's look at the head-to-head meetings. These two teams met three times this season, and the Argos won two of the three. They beat the Alouettes narrowly in Toronto in June, 20-19. Toronto earned another narrow win in mid-October, 24-23, this time at Montréal, Then in the third meeting, which happened to be the regular season finale, Montréal finally won one against Toronto, 38-33.

Based on that, it seems that the Argonauts are the slightly better team. After all, by the time of that last game, both teams had clinched everything that they could have clinched, and so there was not much at stake. So they were not passionately going out to try and earn a win. This game is different. Obviously, the stakes could not be higher.

Ultimately, it seems likely that this will be a close game. Each of their three previous meetings were close, and I see no reason why it will not be close this time again. However, perhaps just going out on a limb here, but my suspicion is that the Alouettes will find a way to upset the Argonauts in this one. It just felt that they were the hotter team towards the end, and they should be flying high after their first playoff win in the better part of a decade last week. That was against battle tested Hamilton, the team that represented the East in the last two Grey Cups. Look for Montréal to make just enough adjustments to squeak one out tomorrow in Toronto.

My pick: Montréal