How the Toronto Maple Leafs Matchup against 3 Potential Playoff Opponents

Florida Panthers

The rematch that no one seems to want. The Florida Panthers look just as good, if not better than last season. When fully healthy they are one of the deepest teams in the league upfront and on the backend.

Matthew Tkachuk and Alexsander Barkov have been elite as always and with the emergence of Sam Reinhart scoring 50 goals, the top of the Panthers forward core is scarier than ever.

They have also been one the best defensive teams in the league all year, allowing the least amount of goals against (178), and are currently in the top three with the least amount of shots against per game (27.82).

Their goaltending has been elite, with Sergei Bobrovsky performing as a top-three starting goalie this year. He is tied for the best GAA average among starting goalies, with a 2.41. He also has a .914 save percentage and 14.5 goals saved above expected.

To put it into perspective, the Maple Leafs still do not seem to know who their starting goalie will be in game 1 of playoffs due to the inconsistent play of both goalies and injury issues.

They have also given up the third most amount of goals of teams currently in the playoffs. Only Dallas and Tampa Bay have given up more goals.

The one spot the Maple Leafs beat the Florida Panthers on paper is offensively. They are the second best team in the league offensively. Auston Matthews and William Nylander are having career years on and off the point sheet as they seem to dominate the play every time they are on the ice.

The Leafs only hope against the Panthers seems to be their offence, which in past years, has disapeared in the playoffs. Florida is probably the worst first round matchup for the Maple Leaf out of the potential teams they could end up playing.