Tonight, the Toronto Maple Leafs host Roberto Luongo and the Florida Panthers.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are coming off of a disappointing home loss against the QEW rival, the Buffalo Sabres. Sabres’ forward, Jack Eichel stole the show and put two goals past Frederik Andersen to grab a 3-2 win in Toronto. The Toronto Maple Leafs will be looking for redemption against the Panthers.
Unfortunately for the Toronto Maple Leafs, the last three games against the Panthers haven’t had such great outcomes. The Panthers beat the Toronto Maple Leafs in late November by a score of 2-1. On February 20th, the Toronto Maple Leafs prevailed over the Panthers but it was a low scoring affair. The last time these two teams faced on February 27th, the Toronto Maple Leafs lost 3-2 to the Panthers. Hopefully, the Toronto Maple Leafs can tie up the season series tonight.
Toronto Maple Leafs
This morning, Kristen Shilton of TSN attended the Toronto Maple Leafs morning skate and tweeted out the lines. It appeared from Shilton’s tweet, that Mike Babcock has not made any changes. That could change mid-game if the Toronto Maple Leafs look sluggish and need a switch.
Although the Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t changed their line pairings, I did want to make note of a couple items.
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Per a report from Paul Hendrick of Leafs Nation Network, Leo Komarov did skate after the morning skate. He won’t play tonight against the Panthers, but it is refreshing to see Komarov out on the ice. Hopefully, Komarov will return to practice in the next few days to ensure that he is ready for the playoffs. The Toronto Maple Leafs will require Komarov’s defensive skill-set in the playoffs, especially if the Boston Bruins are their first round foe.
Additionally, Mitch Marner has been on fire. He enters tonight’s contest with a nine game point streak. A lot of these points have been accrued on the power-play and have made the Toronto Maple Leafs power-play units one of the best in the NHL. Look for Marner to increase his point streak tonight.
Florida Panthers
Unfortunately, the Toronto Maple Leafs won’t face-off against their old friend, James Reimer. In his last five starts, Reimer has recorded two shut-outs and has been nothing but a beast in net for the Panthers. On Monday night, Reimer started for the Panthers, stopped 32 saves and earned his fourth shut-out of the season against the New York Islanders. Instead of playing Reimer tonight, the Panthers’ coaching staff has opted to put Luongo in net and play Reimer tomorrow night against the Ottawa Senators.
This season, Luongo hasn’t been too bad himself. In 29 games, he owns a 2.55 GAA and a .927 SV%. Both his GAA and SV% are an improvement compared to his numbers from last season. Last season, he had a 2.68 GAA and a .915 SV%.
Moving on from net-minding, if the Leafs look to grab a win tonight they’ll need to play well in the neutral zone. The Florida Panthers have a strong offense led by Aleksander Barkov, Vincent Trocheck, Jonathan Huberdeau and Evgeni Dadonov and the Maple Leafs will need to stop these guys in the neutral zone before they have a chance of jumping in front of Andersen.
Prediction & Notes
If the Maple Leafs can beat the Panthers tonight and the Colorado Avalanche beat the Philadelphia Flyers in regulation, than the Maple Leafs will clinch a playoff birth. The Flyers haven’t looked solid as of late and own a 4-3-3 record in their last 10 games. Hopefully, the Avalanche and Nathan MacKinnon can defeat the Flyers.
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My prediction for tonight’s game is that the Leafs will defeat the Panthers by a score of 4-3.
Puck drop will be at approximately 7:35 pm EST and the game can be found on Rogers Sportsnet.
Thanks for reading!
stats from NHL.com