Leafs look like a team that can go all the way – with a few crucial fixes
Who are these guys?
The Toronto Maple Leafs of the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs continue to look unrecognizable compared to their previous recent incarnations. For the second consecutive game, they slugged it out with the defending champion Florida Panthers and, to the presumed surprise of so many jaded fans expecting the worst, Toronto emerged from the cloud of dust the winner again. After defeating the Panthers 4-3 Wednesday night, the Leafs are six wins deep in a postseason for the first time since 2003-04. They’ve won 15 of their past 18 games dating back to the regular season. This team is a certified wagon.
As has been the theme in many of their wins so far this spring, it’s precisely how the Leafs did it in Game 2 that epitomizes the different aura around them right now. They allowed the first goal, a quick wrist shot from Aleksander Barkov on the power play 10:58 into the first period. It didn’t matter. They answered 7:21 later on a Max Pacioretty redirection. The Panthers scored 15 seconds into the second period when Brad Marchand cut into the slot and waited out goaltender Joseph Woll. It didn’t matter. William Nylander flipped a Pacioretty saucer pass past Panthers netminder Sergei Bobrovsky to tie the game three minutes later. After Max Domi one-timed a pretty Steven Lorentz feed to put the Leafs up 3-2 late in the second, Anton Lundell deposited an Aaron Ekblad slap pass into a wide-open cage to knot the game at 5:33 of the third. It didn’t matter. The Leafs broke the deadlock just 17 seconds later when a prayer of a wrister from new dad Mitch Marner found its way to the blocker-side top corner.
The Panthers pulled their goaltender with 2:55 to play and unleashed an onslaught. They had nine high-danger chances and an expected goal share north of 80 percent in the third. But Woll, despite not being able to see a lot of what was thrown his way, made the saves he had to, the most important a scintillating sliding toe stop on Mackie Samoskevich to preserve the 4-3 lead. Toronto blocked 25 shots to Florida’s eight. The Leafs were once again a physical equal to what many consider the NHL’s toughest team and look like a group finally beginning to understand the sacrifices required to make a deep run in the playoffs.
“I think we’re playing connected,” Domi said. “Florida rims a lot of pucks, so come back in our zone, you’ve got to do your jobs, you’ve got to be in the right spot coming out and make that play to chip it out. A lot of the wingers are doing a great job of getting it past that ‘D’ pinch. It’s not an easy feat to do, and guys are really bearing down and doing it. That’s what it takes this time of year. You’ve got to take a hit sometimes or eat a stick in the face, whatever it might be to just get the puck on your side of the line, and that’s what we’re doing.”
It hardly feels like a coincidence at this point that the Leafs have hardened their identity in Year 1 of coach Craig Berube. Whereas Sheldon Keefe was experiencing many of the same emotional highs and lows as his players, having not broken through for a long run coaching his first NHL team, there is clearly a different feeling in the dressing room listening to a coach who has won a Stanley Cup as recently in 2019.
“His calmness, his readiness for every single game to get us ready, his pregame talks, his during-game talks, just to keep the intensity up,” Marner said. “So he brings that intensity but that calmness all in one. That’s something that as a player you love, and we’re just trying to react off that. He’s done a great job with everyone.”
So the Leafs, particularly the core members who have been around for multiple playoff runs during the Marner/Auston Matthews era, truly find themselves in uncharted territory. Given the Leafs are the farthest they’ve been in 20-plus years and are leading the defending Cup winner 2-0 in a series, there’s a case to be made they’re positioned better than they’ve been for a legitimate push at the Stanley Cup since…2002? Dare we say 1993? It may sound hyperbolic, but think about how good the Panthers looked in brushing aside an excellent Tampa Bay Lightning team in Round 1. If you knock the Panthers out, you’re the Stanley Cup favorite going forward, and the Leafs only need to win two of their next five games to do so.
Not that it will be remotely easy. If the Leafs want to close out the Cats, they’ll need to improve in a few key areas. Their power play finally got its first goal of the series on their eighth attempt, but it took the second unit simplifying things on the Pacioretty tip-in to do so. The Panthers did a tremendous job bottling up the Lightning’s elite unit and have harassed Toronto’s PP1 as well, putting constant pressure on Marner, Matthews, John Tavares, Matthew Knies and Nylander, forcing them into early decisions. The Panthers were the league’s most penalized team in the regular season, and their style of play will continue getting them into trouble, but the Leafs need to capitalize more than once every eight opportunities.
They also have to solve the masterful line of Carter Verhaeghe, Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart, the latter two both 2024-25 Selke Trophy finalists. They absolutely pancaked their competition in Game 2, holding a 21-7 edge in shot attempts and 10-2 margin in scoring chances at 5-on-5. They were outscored 1-0 by the Knies-Matthews-Marner line because of Marner scoring from NBA three-point distance, and the Leafs’ first line holds a 3-0 margin at 5-on-5 in the series, but when the scoring chances are this lopsided, the success doesn’t feel sustainable. Interestingly, Berube did not try to scheme his top line away from Florida’s with the Leafs holding last change, instead opting to have his best defensive unit cancel out Florida’s. Matthews clearly is laboring through an injury but continues to play physical hockey and win crucial draws, now at 58.6 percent for the postseason.
But if Matthews and Co. are out against the Panthers’ top line, what is Toronto’s answer for the Panthers’ third line of Eetu Luostarinen, Lundell and Marchand? They have been unbelievably dominant against Toronto, just as they were against Tampa. They’ve outscored opponents 8-1 at 5-on-5 this postseason, they’ve scored four goals through two games of this series and hold a 14-4 edge in scoring chances. They’ve overwhelmed their competition and serve as a reminder that Florida is still as deep as any team in the Eastern Conference up front.
The Leafs have earned their six wins playing a similar style against the Ottawa Senators and Florida: bend, don’t break, get in front of shots, win the transition game with goals off the rush and respond in clutch situations. But the Panthers hold a 63-27 edge in scoring chances at 5-on-5 through two games and get the line-matching edge for coach Paul Maurice heading home. Toronto, then, still has plenty to clean up if it wants to take down the champs. The Leafs have landed the haymaker punches, but the judges’ scorecards tell us their opponent is ahead on points.
“They’ve been in that [0-2] position, a lot of guys have been in that position, they probably are going to feel good about going home, and we know they’re going to come out with a ton of energy,” Pacioretty said. “We’ve got to match that.”
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