Toronto Maple Leafs @ Florida Panthers
07:30 PM at Amerant Bank Arena
Watch on: ESPN+, HULU, TVAS, TSN4

The Leafs last game was away on November 29 against the Pittsburgh Penguins, which Toronto won by a score of 7-2 in regulation. The Leafs have a record of 11-11-3 for a 0.5oo Points %.

The Florida Panthers last played at home on November 28 against the Calgary Flames. The Panthers lost by a score of 5-3 in regulation, and their current league record is 12-11-1 for a 0.521 Points %.

Them

If you think that your playoff dreams are done 25 games in, you have bigger problems. I know they don’t think that in the room. It’s just, obviously, with the media attention and the fan support they have in Toronto, things get blown way out of proportion up there.
What are they, four points out of a playoff spot? If people are thinking they’re out of a playoff spot for the season, they gotta find a new job.

You might recognize that as the words of Brad Marchand. This has been characterized by some as trolling, which is how to phrase this... stupid.

What Marchand is really doing is talking to his own fanbase, and also telling it how he sees it. He's right about Florida not being out of a playoff spot so early. Yes, they will have to play most of the season with Sasha Barkov, and they are going to be without Matthew Tkachuk for some weeks yet. But they plan on being a playoff team, and it's not a wildly unreasonable job.

They have played 24 games, they have 25 points, and last year 91 points got you the wild card in the east. To get to 92 points, they only have to play at a .578 pace for the rest of the season. If you can't do that, you don't need to be thinking about playoffs, and yes they can do that. They can likely do better than that. And even if the east stays tight outside the top few teams, they can still do it. No guarantees, of course.

With the team they have, the Panthers are top five in Expected Goals % and top 10 in both the for and against sides of that number.

Their power play is a little tepid, and they don't score at expected there. Shorthanded they allow very little in shots against but are killed by goaltending there. They score enough to win enough – just barely – but they give up way too much. This problem, aside from on the PK, is mostly the goalies.

Sergei Bobrovsky has had periods like this before, where he is below average. Daniil Tarasov is doing okay, but imagine this team with Spencer Knight?

They are better than the Penguins, but easier to beat on the power play.

Lines

Last Game (2025-11-28) via Daily Faceoff and subject to change

Mackie Samoskevich - Anton Lundell - Brad Marchand
Jesper Boqvist - Evan Rodrigues - Sam Reinhart
Carter Verhaeghe - Sam Bennett - A.J. Greer
Noah Gregor - Luke Kunin - Jack Devine

Gustav Forsling - Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola - Seth Jones
Uvis Balinskis - Jeff Petry

Sergei Bobrovsky - starter
Daniil Tarasov

Us

Troy Stecher was moved to play with Jake McCabe last game and he won the right to go again, even with Simon Benoit back in the lineup. We'll see Stecher for a lot longer than perhaps anticipated as Brandon Carlo will now miss significant time, likely from surgery.

Matias Maccelli and Calle Järnkrok sit out this game along with Dakota Mermis.

Lines

David Alter via Daily Faceoff from yesterday's practice.

Matthew Knies - Auston Matthews - Max Domi
Easton Cowan - John Tavares - William Nylander
Dakota Joshua - Nicolas Roy - Bobby McMann
Steven Lorentz - Scott Laughton - Nicholas Robertson

Morgan Rielly - Oliver Ekman-Larsson
Jake McCabe - Troy Stecher
Simon Benoit - Philippe Myers

Joe Woll - starter
Dennis Hildeby

The Game

Both teams want to win, otherwise, how the Leafs problems stack up against the Panthers problems is hard to predict.

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