SUNRISE, Fla. — Heading into Tuesday’s game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Florida Panthers, it was hard not to look ahead and see it as a playoff preview. For weeks, the standings didn’t move much, and it felt like the Leafs and Panthers were locked into a first-round matchup.
“Both teams know that they’re playing for something bigger that’s coming,” Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said before the game.
But in a dramatic late-season turn, the Leafs saw their long-presumed first-round opponent doing everything the Leafs tried to do well Tuesday night to win their final game of the season. Combined with capitulation from the Boston Bruins in games 81 and 82, the Panthers overtook the Bruins for the top spot in the Atlantic Division with a 5-2 win in their final game of the season.
So now the Leafs know they’re heading to Boston to begin Round 1 as the third seed.
After the game, not many Leafs players were interested in discussing the series with one more regular-season game still left to play.
“(It’s) a great opportunity for us,” John Tavares said. “We know it’ll be a real test, and we’ll have to be prepared.”
Boston is the same city where Tavares, Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and Morgan Rielly saw their 2018-19 season come to an end after going up 3-2 in their first-round series before losing Game 7.
It’s the same city where most of that core lost a Game 7 a year earlier in an ugly, 7-4 Bruins beatdown after the Leafs took a 4-3 lead into the third period.
And it’s the same city where this current lineup lost two games (one in a shootout) this season after being outmuscled for the large part.
So, are the Leafs ready for Round 1?
Considering how they played against the Panthers in a game that, again, had the makings of a playoff preview, there are still questions for the Leafs to answer in a very short window.
First, can Toronto quickly manufacture the kind of intensity needed in the postseason? Against the Panthers, the Leafs put together a strong, two-goal first period. But after the first intermission, the lack of urgency manifested in sloppy play through the neutral zone and virtually no pushback while the home side sent wave after wave of offence against Joseph Woll in the second period.
Pucks on net they say 👀 pic.twitter.com/EyTZ58DHI9
— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) April 17, 2024
The final tally for Panthers shots in the second period? Twenty-nine, the most any team has logged in one period this season.
“I thought we had to get to another level in the game emotionally. We didn’t get there,” Keefe said.
The Leafs showed continued physicality against the Panthers, but it wasn’t enough to change the tempo in their favour through the second and third periods.
Second, can the Leafs get enough from their goaltending to help shut down a Bruins team that averaged 3.21 goals per game this season, currently 14th in the NHL?
Ilya Samsonov and Woll have combined to allow 15 goals against in the Leafs’ past three games. Yes, the defending in front of them also deserves some of the criticism for that tally, but neither of the Leafs’ two netminders likely to play against the Bruins has looked their best over those three games.
There are other questions to consider, too, including the health and readiness of Calle Jarnkrok, Max Domi and Bobby McMann and who Keefe’s preferred six defenders will be for Game 1. But the final most pressing question to come out of Tuesday’s game while projecting forward to the series against the Bruins: Exactly what kind of offence are the Leafs going to get from the top of their lineup?
This is mostly the same team that mustered just two goals per game in each of the Leafs’ five games against the Panthers last season. Marner, Tavares and Nylander all nabbed points Tuesday while Matthews was held off the scoresheet for the first time in a month. The three power-play goals the Leafs have scored over the past two games should help build momentum for a power play heading into the postseason. That will matter against a Bruins team that finished its season with the seventh-best penalty kill in the NHL (82.5 percent).
“The last couple (games) here we haven’t been able to sustain good portions of the game,” Tavares said. “Either we haven’t started well or — today we had a really good start and put ourselves in a good spot. … Understanding maintaining momentum, and then when you lose it, grabbing it back and obviously withstanding the pressure and momentum the other team builds. You’re obviously playing really good hockey teams this time of the year. You’re going to have to check and defend and weather the storm. That’s one area we have to be better with.”
Game 82 for the Leafs against the Tampa Bay Lightning is about ensuring they’re trying to answer some of those questions and building the kind of momentum they’ll want heading into the postseason.
“I thought we played a good game today in a lot of ways, especially in that first period,” Keefe said. “I’d like us to start that way again. There are a lot of things we will take out of that first period. We want our special teams to be good, which they were again tonight. That is a positive for us. The power play gets us going. The penalty kill was really overworked tonight, but they did a good job. Those are the kinds of things you’d like to see continue. We want to get out of the game healthy, which it looks like we did tonight. To that end, it was a successful night, but obviously, I wish we got the 2 points.”
In the short term, will Matthews get a chance to be part of that momentum? He is sitting on 69 goals, and with one game remaining to become just the ninth player in NHL history to hit 70 goals, Keefe didn’t commit either way to Matthews’ status against the Lightning.
“We’ll talk about it,” Keefe said. “We’ve got 12 healthy forwards.”
Indeed, for Keefe and the Leafs, there’s a lot to talk about and a lot to consider before one of the most intriguing first-round playoff series in recent memory.
(Photo of Mitch Marner being congratulated by teammates Tuesday: Wilfredo Lee / Associated Press)
