The Toronto Maple Leafs are in a favorable position leading the reigning Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers 2-0 as the series shifts to Sunrise, FL for Game 3 at the Amerant Bank Arena on Friday, but they will face a desperate Panthers squad coming off two one-goal losses and hoping to not fall behind 3-0 in the best-of-seven series.
The Leafs overcame a sluggish start in Game 2, bouncing back twice after the Panthers opened the scoring and retook the lead to win 4-3 on Wednesday. Toronto will have to rely on getting contributions from their core group as well as offense from their blueline and bottom-six if they are to take a stranglehold on the series. William Nylander has three goals in the first two games, and Mitch Marner scored the game-winner on a long shot that beat Sergei Bobrovsky, but centers John Tavares and Auston Matthews have yet to break through offensively.
Sunrise State Skate
— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) May 9, 2025pic.twitter.com/DzI2Z7npVD
Bobrovsky has not been the “Goalie Bob” of 12 months ago, who led the Panthers to the Stanley Cup by outdueling Igor Shesterkin in the Eastern Conference Final and shutting down Edmonton in Game 7, as Florida benefited from Andrei Vasilevskiy playing like a sieve in Round 1. The 37-year-old has allowed nine goals in the two losses, but the Leafs cannot expect him to continue to be as generous with the Panthers season on the line.
Toronto will also have to expect Florida to be at their most energetic and nasty from the word go in Game 3, and the Leafs will need goalie Joseph Woll to be better and more consistent than he was in the third period of Game 1 in relief of Anthony Stolarz or early in Game 2, when he let in a stoppable shot by Aleksander Barkov. Woll improved as the game went along and made a game-saving stop on Mackie Samoskevich in the third, but they will need him to be sharp from the start to survive the early surge expected from the home squad.
The matchup that the Leafs have come out on the short end in the first two games has been against the Panthers third line of Brad Marchand, Eetu Luostarinen, and Anton Lundell, who have scored three of the club’s seven goals thus far. Toronto will not have the last change, which will help in Paul Maurice getting the matchups he wants, and will have to avoid taking retaliatory penalties against Florida, who are bound to be cheaper than they’ve been in the series.
Who all has migrated to this site?
a lot of familiar names.