Leafs score

The Toronto Maple Leafs waited until the end of the season to get their games against the Eastern Conference leading Florida Panthers.

I don’t know if Florida played it slow on purpose to start, or just took advantage of a Leafs team that played another highly ranked team last night. Back to the other end where Tavares almost does the deed, then Sam Bennet comes close to scoring for Florida. Campbell makes the needed saves and the fame goes to overtime. It pays off when Nylander passes to Tavares who ties the game at sixes! The Panthers don’t let up after they tie the game, and hammer the Leafs while controlling play. Kyle Clifford is called for slashing and the Panthers score on their early in the third power play, to tie the game at fives. He makes a quick glove save off the faceoff, but Claude Giroux scores his first as a Panther after a cross crease pass. The Leafs get a too many men penalty. The Panthers flurry of offense continues as the crash the net and make some nice three way passes to get shots off. The Leafs get lucky on a couple shots as Källgren is far, far, out of the net. The Leafs give up their offensive advantage when TJ Brodie is called for hooking, and the Panthers get a power play. The Toronto Maple Leafs waited until the end of the season to get their games against the Eastern Conference leading Florida Panthers. On March 27th they defeated the, 5-2 at home, and now they make their first trip to an area near but not in Miami, to play the Panthers in their home.

Sure, the Maple Leafs and Panthers want to fix aspects of their game after Florida's wild 7-6 OT win. But they should also focus on the positives.

No doubt, both the Maple Leafs and Panthers want to play tighter games. Instead of worrying about the Panthers’ ability to defend, maybe they should be exalted for never giving up? Are the Panthers perfect? The Panthers have already put together a ludicrous 23 comeback wins. Clearly, the Panthers are no normal team. Both teams are extremely good, yet they won’t need to wait long to face a different, extremely good opponent. At least if you don’t want to overreact to your team’s highs and lows. This feels like another important time to lay that argument out. the Panthers. He’d end up with a whopping four points (2G, 2A) in this one. We see it all the time with high-scoring teams. Watching games like Tuesday’s wild Maple Leafs – Panthers slugfest sometimes feels like observing some wild, woolly endangered species.

Coming off a highly-impressive team effort in a playoff atmosphere in Tampa Bay, the Maple Leafs have made the trip south to Sunrise to face the ...

I really liked what I’ve seen from them, and now you add in Blackwell and Abruzzese. I thought [Abruzzese] had a great game on the road against Tampa last night — not an easy thing for a player with his inexperience to do, but he showed positive progression, so we like how some of that depth is coming together. No doubt, he makes a big difference to the mindset of our team and the confidence of our team. This is different, though — we truly have seven guys that can play every night and can play in any situation. That’s the decision we’ll make here today, but I think we’re in a good spot here now with Muzzin coming back. When you have a player like [Barkov] on your team, he can play anywhere and probably be the best player in any position. Obviously, his shot is elite and he’s just always in the mix. We know we’re both going to be in and we’re going to have to go through each other if we want to win, so it’s just fun to see where we’re at right now. Holl’s game is in a better place than it was when the two last played together, and hopefully, Muzzin is rejuvenated and refreshed in a similar manner to Jack Campbell since his layoff. The Panthers have scored 23 times and given up 13 in just four games, while the Leafs have scored 25 and given up 12. Different challenges arise every game — you play some teams that are out of the playoffs that play extremely hard and other teams don’t so it’s hard to gauge. This will be a tough test against a rested Panthers team playing at home (where they’re 28-6-0), but the Leafs might be able to ride in on the wave from last night’s victory and jump on Florida early. Comparatively, the Leafs have wins against the Lightning, Panthers, and Bruins all within the last nine days.