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With 18 games to go, the Maple Leafs are two points behind the Florida for first place in the Atlantic (with a game in hand), and wouldn’t you know it, they play them tonight with an opportunity to get a leg up on a reeling Panthers team
This is the first of three matchups against the Panthers over the Leafs‘ next 13 games, and they will likely go a long way to deciding who wins the division.
In their first matchup of the season series, the Panthers won 5-1 in a game that included an empty-netter and a Leafs lineup with all of Fraser Minten, Nikita Grebenkin, Alex Nylander, Alex Steeves, and Connor Dewar dressed.
This time around, the Leafs are facing a Panthers team with far more absences as Matthew Tkachuk, Brad Marchand, and Aaron Ekblad (suspension) are all out. They just blew a 2-0 lead in the third period to lose in regulation to the Bruins (although they were on a six-game winning streak before then) and look to be dressing a second line that includes Matthew Samoskevich and Evan Rodrigues. The Panthers are still very a good team, to be sure, as Alexsander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett, Sergei Bobrosvky, and Gustav Forsling are all playing tonight. This isn’t a pushover lineup, but there are some clear vulnerabilities.
On the Leafs‘ side, they have a fully healthy forward group available unless you rate Max Pacioretty as a top 12 forward. On defense, Chris Tanev is a game-time decision, and he would be a massive loss/return, but everyone else is available. The new additions have had nearly a week to settle in with the team, organization, and city. This is more or less as healthy as the team can get (if Tanev dresses). They are also finally home after playing all of two home games over the last month and a half.
If we look at the end of Leafs‘ recent road trip, they didn’t play particularly well in a shootout win against Utah, and the ice was tilted against them in their previous losses against Colorado and Vegas. In the period and change before those two away losses, they blew a 2-0 lead at home to the San Jose Sharks.
This isn’t just a big game in the standings; it’s an important game back at home to get the team’s game trending back in the right direction. Add in that it’s Florida across the way, the team is relatively healthy, and the importance in the standings; this is as big of a regular season game as we’ve had to date in 2025.
Let’s see who steps up and delivers.
Toronto Maple Leafs Projected Lines
Forwards
#23 Matthew Knies — #34 Auston Matthews — #16 Mitch Marner
#19 Calle Jarnkrok — #91 John Tavares — #88 William Nylander
#74 Bobby McMann — #24 Scott Laughton — #11 Max Domi
#29 Pontus Holmberg — #64 David Kampf — #18 Steven Lorentz
Defensemen
#22 Jake McCabe — #8 Chris Tanev*
#44 Morgan Rielly — #25 Brandon Carlo
#2 Simon Benoit — #95 Oliver Ekman-Larsson
OR #95 Oliver Ekman-Larsson — #51 Philippe Myers
Goaltenders
Starter: #41 Anthony Stolarz
#60 Joseph Woll
*game-time decision: Chris Tanev
Extras: Philippe Myers/Simon Benoit, Nick Robertson
Injured (LTIR): Jani Hakanpää, Max Pacioretty
Florida Panthers Projected Lines
Forwards
#23 Carter Verhaeghe — #16 Aleksander Barkov — #13 Sam Reinhart
#25 Mackie Samoskevich — #9 Sam Bennett — #17 Evan Rodrigues
#27 Eetu Luostarinen — #15 Anton Lundell — #70 Jesper Boqvist
#10 AJ Greer — #8 Nico Sturm — #92 Tomas Nosek
Defensemen
#42 Gustav Forsling — #3 Seth Jones
#77 Niko Mikkola — #7 Dmitry Kulikov
#88 Nate Schmidt — #26 Uvis Balinskis
Goaltenders
Starter: #72 Sergei Bobrovsky
Spencer Knight
Injured/Out: Aaron Ekblad, Brad Marchand, Matthew Tkachuk
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