The banged-up Maple Leafs fell behind early and never looked likely to mount a comeback as the four-game winning streak came to an unceremonious end in Florida.
Your game in 10:
1. When sizing up this matchup between a decimated Toronto forward corps against a hungry and nearly fully healthy Panthers team (only missing Anton Lundell), the five-on-five matchup was certainly a tough proposition for the Maple Leafs on the road. Special teams, goaltending, and avoiding chasing the game early were going to be critical if the Leafs were to achieve a positive result tonight.
During their 7-1-0 stretch without Matthews (prior to this game), the Leafs were +7 on special teams over those eight games — 10 power-play goals for, one shorthanded goal for, and four power-play goals against. They were most likely going to need to win this battle again to earn a point or more tonight against a physical and oft-penalized Florida team, and it did turn out that special teams were at the forefront of the game early on. It didn’t go the Leafs‘ way this time.
2. Craig Berube again started his fourth line to open the game (including Steven Lorentz), and Oliver Ekman-Larsson started on the blue line in their first game back in Florida since the Cup-winning Game 7. The shift ended with an undisciplined penalty by Matthew Tkachuk on Connor Dewar, gifting the Leafs a very early opportunity to take the lead and play from in front right away.
The first 40 seconds of the power play were encouraging enough. Alex Nylander — curiously swapped in for Fraser Minten, who has had chances but hasn’t buried one at the net front of PP1 — whiffed on a nice feed into the middle by Mitch Marner, who also fired the two shots of the power play from a distance. The Leafs recovered a couple of pucks to sustain the zone time, but after a Morgan Rielly turnover high in the zone, the Leafs could never set the zone again due to a series of turnovers under the pressure of the Florida PK.
Soon after, on Nikita Grebenkin‘s first shift of the game, he was assessed an incredibly soft call for bowling over Uvis Balinskis as Balinskis attempted to protect the puck in a corner battle. It was somehow called boarding despite Grebenkin in no way directing Balinskis into the boards. At last check, you’re allowed to compete for a puck by shoving a player if he is backing up into you while trying to protect it, but alas…
3. The Leafs’ first kill started well with multiple clearances by the McCabe-Tanev / Marner-Dewar unit, but after a fresh change, the Leafs were quickly down 1-0.
You could make the argument Holmberg could’ve been out more aggressively on Aaron Ekblad with a more active stick on the play, but really, this is the type of goal the Leafs’ netminders haven’t been giving up with much frequency this season. It came from outside the faceoff dot, and there wasn’t a screen or a major distance to cover on the pass across for Anthony Stolarz, who seemed to read it late as Aleksander Barkov found a hole in the goalie at the near post.
4. It went from concerning to disastrous 50 seconds later for the Maple Leafs after a post-PK unit of Nylander, Minten, and Robertson took the ice with the Rielly-OEL pairing.
Stolarz could’ve handled the initial dump-in better behind the net, as he slightly bobbled it and sent a bit of a grenade at/past Rielly on the wall. After Florida sealed the boards and recovered the puck, the Leafs never touched it again before they were fishing it out of their net down 2-0.
After OEL intercepted a cycle play behind his net, he and Robertson were not on the same page; OEL was on his backhand and tossed the puck in the corner, thinking Nick Robertson would anticipate a play to the wall vs. skating along his goal line looking for a tight bump pass into the middle with forecheckers swarming down low.
Robertson threw a hit along the wall initially after the turnover but switched off afterward, standing and watching off to the side of the net as the Panthers took the puck out front with numbers at the net. OEL was outnumbered in front, where Nylander joined Robertson as onlookers more than active checkers while Mackie Samoskevich collected a loose puck and finished past Stolarz, who didn’t have much of a chance here.
Five minutes in, it was suddenly a massive hill to climb for a Leafs team struggling to score at five-on-five and without half its regular forward group.
5. Speaking of struggling to score at five-on-five, in a game where quality chances were few and far between, the Leafs had a couple of odd-man rush opportunities with the game still in the balance that they did not handle well in the first half of the second period.
One came a few minutes into the middle frame when one of many solid plays by Simon Benoit in this game led to a 2v1 for Nick Robertson and Nylander. Robertson was indecisive, held onto it, and ended up running out of room on his backhand; an earlier feed to Nylander would’ve put one of the league’s top goal scorers in a great position to make something happen.
Halfway through the second period, Connor Dewar had an odd-man break developing with Bobby McMann after the Panthers were caught up ice on a bad pinch by Ekblad. An earlier pass in the neutral zone likely would’ve sent McMann in all alone; Dewar held onto it and actually almost scored after his first shot was blocked, but both were missed opportunities in a game where rush offense was hard to come by.
In the zone, the Leafs didn’t sustain enough zone time off their forecheck, but when they did, they worked some high-to-low plays to their D without troubling Bobrovsky enough. Rielly, Timmins, and OEL alone were responsible for 10 of the Leafs’ 24 shots tonight, which isn’t enough shot volume in general but also speaks to the lack of opportunities they generated in the prime real estate of the offensive zone.
A Fraser Minten post in the first (from a nice Nikita Grebenkin pass) and a decent look for W. Nylander were two of the too-few looks generated off of cycle plays where the Leafs actually won pucks back and got them off the wall into productive areas of the ice in the offensive zone. It’s tough to judge too seriously right now, and we’ll see where things trend with Matthews, Knies, and eventually Domi back in the lineup (and maybe Pacioretty at some point), but as more of the skill returns, there needs to be more creativity from this team inside the offensive zone at five-on-five.
6. When Tkachuk took another undisciplined penalty late in the middle frame, it presented a Leafs team struggling for offense with a potential foothold back in the game. Instead, they were picking the puck out of their own net just 14 seconds into the power play after winning the initial draw.
Under pressure on his backhand on the wall after the draw win, Nylander flipped a puck at John Tavares in the high slot, where JT gloved it down. The ideal play was to either turn away from pressure into a bunch of space behind him or, at a minimum, rip it down into the corner toward Marner. Tavares tried a risky pass back to Nylander high in the zone that never stood a chance and immediately turned over, putting Nylander on the wrong side of the puck for a shorthanded rush against.
Tavares then jumped over and committed to taking the pass option on the ensuing 2v1 vs. holding in the middle, scrambling the sort out for Nylander and Rielly tracking back, which they did not handle well. The trailer on the rush, Sam Reinhart, was free to collect a drop pass from Barkov after Barkov cut into the space in the middle, and Reinhart ripped it by Stolarz to all but put the game to bed at 3-0.
7. Tavares’ response after wearing the goat horns on the shorthanded goal was the right one, as he sought to make up for it immediately on the power play once the top unit returned to the ice (they were deservedly pulled immediately after the goal against but returned to the ice with around a minute left in the PP. Notably, Berube/Savard had, by this point, swapped Grebenkin in as a net-front option instead of Nylander, who moved back to unit #2).
Tavares helped recover a puck down low, won three draws despite taking a high stick to the face on one of them (uncalled), nearly scored in front by batting a puck out of midair, took a one-timer from the circle, and then helped the Leafs tie the game off the draw.
A nice bounce off of the faceoff fell perfectly to Mitch Marner in front, where Marner showed the supreme finishing confidence we’ve seen from him of late to patiently outwait Sergei Bobrovsky and deposit his ninth of the season.
Despite just one goal in his first 11 games, Marner is now on a 34-goal pace (his career high is 35) thanks to eight goals in his last 11 (seven of which have come in the nine games without Matthews).
Marner 9th of the Season vs Panthers courtesy of @Bonsie1951 and @Jim_Ralph. @LeafsJelly pic.twitter.com/BIdvtDQSiJ
— Maple Leafs Hotstove (@LeafsNews) November 28, 2024
8. Multiple times before this matchup, Craig Berube referenced wanting the Leafs to initiate physically in this game, but it did not play out that way on the ice tonight.
It probably didn’t help that the refs set the tone with two fairly soft calls within five minutes of the game starting. Still, when Ekblad dropped Tavares in the second period with a big hit and Tkachuk clipped Stolarz’s head, among other examples, there wasn’t much of a physical response from the Leafs the other way, either in terms of an immediate confrontation or generally dealing out some rough stuff in equal measure. Only two noteworthy hits of any consequence come to mind — one by Jake McCabe and one by Alex Steeves (of all players). The hit count was 28-19 Florida despite the Panthers owning more of the puck.
The Leafs have been much better in this area overall this season, but this was a pretty flat performance in just about every regard. Earlier this week, Anthony suggested a blue line tweak for this matchup where Jani Hakanpaa would rejoin the lineup alongside Rielly while OEL moved next to Benoit, shifting to a more physical makeup with the defense group. It likely didn’t make or break the result tonight — and the team was coming off four straight wins — but it turned out to be an off night for Timmins, and the Leafs probably could’ve used some extra jam.
Notably, with OEL on Rielly’s right, the pairing is now at 7-9 in goal share after tonight’s goal against and has owned just 42% shot attempt share despite pretty heavy offensive-zone usage.
9. The Leafs tried to find a spark by loading up their three stars on a line in the third at points, but not much of a threat was in the air. Any hope the Leafs did have of making a push of it down two ended prematurely when Nylander took a four-minute high-sticking penalty in front of the Florida net with seven minutes left in the game. Nylander went to engage with Nate Schmidt in front, but a cross-check rode up for a clear penalty at a bad time.
On the subsequent kill, Stolarz again got beat at his near post from outside the faceoff dot by Carter Verhaghe — a nice shot, but Stolarz’s heels were nearly on the goal line, as he should’ve challenged more aggressively to cut down the angle.
It had been 12 days since Stolarz’s last game, a strong performance in a win over Edmonton. Largely, that’s due to the team’s bizarre schedule of late; partly, it’s because the Leafs prioritized getting Woll rolling coming off of his shutout over the Golden Knights last Wednesday by handing him the start on Sunday vs. Utah (as Berube said before the Utah game, “Woll had a really good game against Vegas… He is coming off a real solid game against a real good team… We wanted to go back with him.”)
Stolarz also kept the net vs. Detroit after pitching his shutout vs. Boston earlier in the season, although it’s noteworthy that Woll had lost two of his last three at that time, including his most recent start vs. St Louis (whereas Stolarz was rolling). Regardless, 12 days off from game action isn’t something Stolarz isn’t used to from his time in Anaheim and Florida, and he simply didn’t have his usual stuff tonight.
10. Tonight’s matchup always felt like a big hill to climb for a Leafs team that has one scoring line plus Nylander at the moment, and making matters worse, Bobby McMann left the game in the second period, pulling up lame when rushing through the neutral zone and keeping all the weight off his right leg as he headed down the tunnel. That meant Grebenkin shifted up with Tavares and Marner and left the Leafs with 11 forwards (of which three are actual top-sixers) while chasing a multi-goal deficit against the Cup champs. Unsurprisingly, they lost by three plus an empty netter.
All in all, the Leafs lost the goaltending battle and the special teams battle, and their top line lost the territorial battle to the Barkov line to the tune of just two shots on goal at five-on-five and under 40% of the shot attempts in the eight minutes head-to-head. Needless to say, with the state of their bottom-nine forward group tonight and overall five-on-five production as of late, that was very far from a winning formula on the road against stiff competition.
Achieving a 7-2-0 record with a next-man-up mentality was an admirable run, but this team needs its captain back as it attempts to begin solving its five-on-five scoring issues in Tampa on Saturday.
Game Flow: 5v5 Shot Attempts
