Toronto Maple Leafs vs Panthers: Missing Their Best Player

The Toronto Maple Leafs play what is, to date, their biggest game of the year.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have won three in a row, and will try to keep it going tonight at home against the Florida Panthers.

The Panthers have two games in hand, but the Leafs are up on their divisional rival by two points.

Win tonight, and it’s Leafs by six.

Lose, and it’s a tie.

Toronto Maple Leafs vs Panthers

Since the Leafs fired Mike Babcock and hired Sheldon Keefe, they are 19-7-3, a record that has them sixth overall in the standings since that day, having played less games than every team ahead of them.

If we rank the teams by points percentage, the Toronto Maple Leafs are third in the NHL over this time, just slightly behind Tampa and Pittsburgh.

Consider that the Leafs played ten games without Jake Muzzin, eight games without Morgan Rielly and three games without either of them, and this record becomes even more impressive. (All stats naturalstattrick.com).

The last time these two teams played, the Leafs lost 8-4 in won of the weirdest games of the season.  The Leafs allowed some of the cheapest goals you’ll ever see that game, while throwing nearly 50 shots on the Panthers net.

It was a terrible game, but one in which the Leafs would usually win.  As bad as the Leafs goaltending has been at times this year, that was probably the worst game either of their goalies had all season long.

Regardless, the Panthers aren’t a bad team, and before their loss to the Canadiens on Saturday, they had won six in a row.

The Leafs are lucky tonight because the Panthers’ best player, Alexander Barkov, is out of the lineup.

The Leafs – who will go back to Freddie Andersen after using Michael Hutchinson on Saturday against Ottawa – will also be getting Kasperi Kapanen back. (For Now). 

Kapanen missed the last game due to disciplinary reasons.

The Panthers will counter in goal with Sergei Bobrovsky.

This is perhaps the most important game of the year for both teams, and it should be an absolute doozy!

Freddie Andersen will be looking for redemption, Auston Matthews will be looking to break out of his one-game slump (not a slump for anyone else, but he’s scored one goal per game lately) and it should be a good game.

Rielly and Ilya Mikheyev remain on the injured reserve.  Trevor Moore will be on the fourth line with Spezza and Gauthier, while Dymtro Timashov will sit.