The Toronto Maple Leafs have their biggest game of the season tomorrow night in Toronto, against the Florida Panthers.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have to do one main thing if they want a shot at making it to the Stanley Cup Finals, and that thing is to win the Atlantic Division.
The Leafs, Panthers and Lightning are all great teams. The two of them who end up playing in the first round against each other will have the hardest series out of any of the 16 teams that make the playoffs.
The remaining team will get a much easier matchup, likely against New York, Columbus or Ottawa, and that team will be expected to feast on the tired winner of the 2 vs 3 Atlantic Matchup. The Leafs badly need to be that team, even more so since their GM blew it (again) and did not add much at the Trade Deadline. (stats naturalstatttrick.com).
Slumping Maple Leafs in epic battle for their season tonight vs Florida
The Panthers lost last night to the Boston Bruins, so they remain two points up on the Leafs with the Leafs having a game in hand. Tampa is three points back of the Leafs.
The importance of tomorrow's game cannot be exaggerated. This is a four-point game - win and you're tied, lose and it's a four point deficit.
The Leafs are 6-3 since the 4 Nations Break, but they won three of those games in extra time, meaning that they could easily be 3-6. Worse, they are the 31st ranked team in 5v5 Expected Goals Percentage since the break.
Since then, the Leafs are also getting some of the worst goaltending in the NHL, with both Joseph Woll and Anthony Stolarz struggling for the first time this season. Ironically, it's the Leafs much maligned power-play that has been keeping them afloat since the season started back up.
It appears that Stolarz will start against Florida, while Chris Tanev will once again be out of the lineup. Tanev hasn't played since he was injured in the Boston game on February 25th.
In two games with the Leafs, Brandon Carlo has a 33% Corsi, and a 37% Expected Goals rating. The Leafs are being absolutely destroyed whenever he's on the ice. Hopefully this is just a case of learning a new team and system, but I feel it's also worth pointing out that at his best, Brandon Carlo isn't a good player in the first place and that this was an extremely expensive, pointless trade that the Leafs will most likely end up regretting for years.
Laughton has been even worse. Outscored 3-0 with him on the ice, the Leafs have had the puck just 20% of the time and have been outshot 9-2.
Yike! Let us hope these guys can turn it around, although it was always insane to think that two role-playing replacement players were going to help the Leafs win the Stanley Cup. Oh well, the best way to think about is Brad Treliving gets another two months of free tickets then we never have to talk about him again.