Panthers Playoff Preview: Meeting the Maple Leafs
After the Panthers' incredible round 1 win over Boston, they don't get much of a break in round 2. Let's break down Toronto and see if the Cats can pull off another upset.
No, I still have no idea how we got here. In all honesty, I was thinking that I wouldn’t have to do another one of these. I had my season-ending post basically all scripted out apart from the actual words and now I have to scrap it to write another one of these. The Bruins seemingly had every advantage over the Panthers yet they failed to capitalize. I have a piece written about how the heck the Panthers actually managed to pull of an upset of incredible proportions that hasn’t been published quite yet, but it should be out today or tomorrow. Anyways, let’s just jump into round 2 and see what the Panthers will have to be dealing with, since despite their incredible upset, they’re not out of the woods yet.
RUST OR REST?
The main question will be the age-old debate of rust vs. rest. The Panthers played 7 games in their first round dogfight with the Bruins while the Maple Leafs only played 6 games in their first round win over Tampa Bay, the first in franchise history since 2004. There have been 68 second round series in the salary cap era so far (from the 2005-06 season onward), and in 28 of them, the team that got LESS rest ended up winning the series, while 24 of them ended with the team with MORE rest winning the series1. The other 16 series had teams who both got the same amount of rest heading into the second round, so while there does seem to be a greater likelihood that the less-rested team wins (41% of the time compared to 35% of the time) in the second round in the cap era, the difference doesn’t seem major. Whittle that down to second round matchups where the difference in games played in the first round was only one game (which this is an example of since the Panthers’ first round series ended in 7 and the Leafs’ first round series ended in 6) and you have 31 series in the cap era, where on 16 occasions, the less-rested team eventually won the series (51.6% of the time). This basically means that in series where the two teams are separated by only one game’s worth of rest, it’s close to a coin flip as to who actually is going to win, so while you may hear a lot about rest vs. rust early on in this series, it doesn’t seem to have as much of an impact as some make it out to have. It seems that less rest is slightly beneficial which should benefit the Panthers in theory, but that isn’t the only factor or the most important factor that determines whether or not you win the series, not by a longshot.
OFFENSE
Unlike last season, the Panthers continued their offensive production into the postseason. Some of that just comes from better luck and better finishing, but some of that also comes from a much better power play (we’ll get to THAT in the special teams category) and better production from star players. Matthew Tkachuk has been everything for this team, netting 11 points (5 of them goals) including a crucial overtime winner in Game 5 that prolonged the series and brought the team back to life. He also had an xGF% of 67.42% (meaning that 67% of the expected goals while Tkachuk was on the ice was for his own team; any number above 50% is seen as good), which puts him 19th in the entire league among all forwards in the 2023 postseason, ahead of players like Nikita Kucherov, Patrice Bergeron, and Auston Matthews. Aleksander Barkov struggled early on, but turned up his play a bit later on in the series, ending with 6 points despite being pinned in his own end with an xGF% of 39.2% (former Panther Nick Bjugstad is at 39.1% in case anyone is curious how poor that number is). Sam Bennett had a strong series with an awesome 66.4% xGF% and 3 goals; his value was more seen in his aggressive forechecking that forced turnovers by the Boston defense rather than on the scoresheet. Anton Lundell even rounded into form later on in the series despite his sophomore slump of a season and showed a strong forechecking ability and a willingness to get to dirty areas. The points didn’t show up for the kid, but as the series went on, he got better. And I would be remiss if I forget Carter Verhaeghe, the OT hero of game 7 who is one goal away from breaking the record for most goals in Panthers playoff history; he also showed that he can be an offensive playdriver and not just a scorer with 6 assists to his name and a solid 52.99% xGF%. The Panthers’ offense finally showed up in the postseason and it seems that from the top 6, it’s Matt Tkachuk and Carter Verhaeghe running the show, but Sasha Barkov seems to finally be coming along, and if he begins to play with that nastiness in his game that everyone says he lacks, look out.
Offensively, the Maple Leafs aren’t exactly slouches either. Their regular season production was once again incredible and that finally seems to have translated into the postseason. Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, long derided for vanishing in the postseason, made sure to show up this time. Marner has 11 points (tied with Tkachuk and Leon Draisaitl for 2nd in the league in postseason scoring) and Matthews has 9 points, only one less than Connor McDavid. Matthews xGF% is fantastic this postseason at 64.26%, putting him 28th in the whole league among forwards. Marner’s advanced numbers aren’t as good, but are still solid in their own right. The Maple Leafs’ depth also has finally started to turn it up. John Tavares finally became the guy the Leafs paid $11 million per year for, as he scored 7 points including the OT winner that got them to the second round and deadline acquisition Ryan O’Reilly has fit the team perfectly and despite the lackluster advanced numbers (46.15% xGF%) has provided leadership and a clutch factor that the team has sorely lacked with 7 points of his own. William Nylander also has come into his own this postseason with another 7 points and an xGF% (59.96%) better than Brad Marchand and Jack Hughes. Youngster Matt Knies has provided much needed depth as well and plays like the power forward that the Leafs have been lacking in recent years. The Maple Leafs offense is dangerous and clearly the main strength to their game.
Advantage: Florida, but only slightly. I think in terms of talent, Toronto is the better offense, but Florida has much more forechecking ability and should be able to leverage that to their advantage and put tons of pressure on the Maple Leafs defense, while the Leafs offense seems mostly possession-based, but can still be extremely dangerous if you leave them opportunities to break out.
DEFENSE
Brandon Montour is having a season for the ages for Florida. Not only did he tie the record for most goals in the regular season by a Panthers defenseman, he also became the first defenseman in franchise history with multiple goals in a playoff game. Then he decided that he liked that so much that he did it again. Montour also is 2nd among Panthers defensemen in xGF% with only Josh Mahura besting his mark of 54.76%. The only problem is that’s about where it ends on positives for the defense. Aaron Ekblad has scored no points all postseason, but his xGF% isn’t terrible at 50.12% and he is a +7 in the postseason (I hate +/- as a stat but he leads the team in it). His partner Gustav Forsling also is a +7 but his xGF% is a below average at best 45.64%. Other Panthers defensemen like Marc Staal and Radko Gudas have been absolutely pinned in their own zone (38.86 and 34.79 xGF% respecitvely) and the team’s lack of defensive depth (or speed on the backend for that matter) is a massive weakness. They also haven’t been scoring much to make up for the defensive weaknesses apart from Montour, as no other Panthers defenseman has more than 3 points in the postseason. If the Leafs can take advantage of the over-aggressive nature of the forecheck and catch the Panthers’ slower defensemen out of position, then they can expect plenty of opportunities for breakaways. Boston had plenty of them and often failed to cash those in; if Toronto can get and finish off those breakways, this will be a long series for the Panthers defense.
If it makes Panthers fans feel any better, Toronto’s defense isn’t exactly great either. Morgan Rielly is the only defenseman for the Leafs who’s scored more than 2 points in the postseason (he has 8 including an OT winner of his own). Rielly and Luke Schenn are the only Leafs defensemen with an xGF% above 50 (Rielly’s is 58.26, while Schenn’s is an impressive 58.89%). Interestingly, teams are getting a lot of shot attempts with Schenn on the ice, as both his CF% and FF% (both metrics measure shot attempts; as with xGF%, you want these numbers to be above 50%) are below 50%, but clearly, Schenn is forcing teams into taking bad shots that don’t generate a lot of expected goals by clogging up the middle of ice and forcing shots to come from outside. The rest of the Leafs’ defense isn’t really producing much or playing particularly strong defensively. Erik Gustafsson is a puck mover who is basically useless 5v5. Mark Giordano is aging and hasn’t done much (he can at least handle forechecks though, which will be important). Deadline acquisition Jake McCabe and former first rounder Timothy Liljegren have been good but not great. The Leafs’ defense will need to be on their game as they struggled with Tampa Bay’s forecheck in their first round matchup and the Panthers’ forecheck is much more aggressive. If the Cats can force plenty of turnovers by the Leafs’ defense, this will be a difficult series for Toronto, but if the Leafs defensemen can move the puck out quickly and evade the forecheck, then they should get plenty of opportunities to get a head full of steam through the neutral zone.
Advantage: Toronto, but barely. Neither team will be putting on a defensive masterclass in my view. This is a huge weak point for both teams, but I’ll give the edge to Toronto because I think they just have better speed to track back than Florida’s defensive core and they have better depth on the back end then the Panthers do.
GOALTENDING
Alex Lyon struggled a bit early on in the Boston series for the Panthers, but once they turned to Sergei Bobrovsky in game 5, everything flipped. At even strength, Bob was one of the best goalies in the league with 1.65 Goals Saved Above Average (GSAA). a .939 SV% and stopping 24 of 28 high danger chances. On the penalty kill though, Bob was pretty bad with a -2.85 GSAA, but he was so good 5v5 that the Bruins couldn’t win that last game that they needed. Lyon in all situations only put up a meager .902 SV% and had -0.43 GSAA. Bobrovsky got the saves when the Panthers needed him to make the saves (see Brad Marchand’s breakaway at the end of Game 5 and you’ll know what I’m talking about), but he’ll need to put up another otherworldly 5v5 performance against Toronto for the Cats to pull off another upset (or at least do better on the penalty kill). Rumor has it the Panthers may start the series with Lyon in net, which seems a bit odd, but if Lyon can at least be passable, then he could swipe an early game the way he did in the Boston series.
Joseph Woll only ended up playing 20 minutes of one of the Leafs’ first round games against Tampa, so while he seems to be the backup with Matt Murray still apparently out, there isn’t much information out there on him and I doubt that Toronto would want to use him that much in a postseason series. His numbers were okay-ish (only -0.53 GSAA) from his one game, but he only faced five shots and one of them ended up in the back of the net. The Leafs are leaning on a netminder familiar to us Panthers fans: Ilya Samsonov. The same Ilya Samsonov who struggled last season and then ended up spending the first round platooning with Vitek Vanecek as the Panthers knocked out the Capitals in 6 games. In the regular season, Samsonov has bounced back slightly, but in the postseason, he’s had his fair share of struggles. He only has a .900 SV% in all situations and -1.30 GSAA. Interestingly, Samsonov’s GSAA number is even worse when you limit it to just 5v5 play (-2.84) which should prove very problematic if the Panthers can dominate 5v5 the way they did late in the sereies against Boston and at many points throughout the regular season.
Advantage: Florida. If Sergei Bobrovsky can keep his form up, the Panthers will be tough to beat and will likely be able to steal a couple of games the way they did against Boston. Samsonov’s 5v5 struggles don’t bode well against a team that dominates 5v5 play, so Toronto’s main hope is to either get in the box, where Samsonov was somehow really strong against Tampa when the Leafs were a man down, or force Florida into the box.
SPECIAL TEAMS
Okay, now we can REALLY talk about Brandon Montour. The man has been on an absolute tear this postseason, and it shows on the power play, where he has been quarterbacking the first unit brilliantly all season and unlike with certain players with great regular seasons last year, it’s transitioned into the playoffs without skipping a beat. He’ll likely never get a Norris Trophy or ever even get significant votes apart from one voter or two giving him a 4th or 5th place vote, but the Panthers power play owes so much to Montour with both his shooting and passing. The Cats have a 25% scoring rate on the power play, which is a good number and while it’s only 7th of the 16 playoff teams, they did have to face one of the best penalty kills in the league in the first round, so I think they’d take those results. Montour is the engine on the man advantage, no doubt about that, and while the Panthers do have other weapons like Tkachuk and Sam Reinhart, the star around which all those pieces orbit on the man advantage mans the blue line. The penalty kill, on the other hand, was nightmarishly awful at 59.3%. Only 2 teams, Vegas and L.A., had worse penalty kills in the first round. The Cats will get no relief heading into round 2 as the Leafs’ power play is as stacked with weapons as the Bruins’ power play was so expect the Leafs to feast on a weak penalty kill, but if Montour can continue being a very effective engine to the power play, the Panthers should at least avoid getting slaughtered in the special teams battle.
The Maple Leafs’ power play is full of weapons. Matthews, Marner, Morgan Rielly quarterbacking the unit, Ryan O’Reilly at the front of the net, John Tavares, William Nylander, and I could go on and on and on. Interestingly, the Leafs managed a 28.6% conversion rate on the power play so far in the postseason, only slightly better than Florida’s conversion rate. The Leafs penalty kill isn’t as strong as Boston’s was heading into the first round, but the Leafs at least held their own against a daunting Tampa power play in the first round and got out of the series with a 76.2% conversion rate on the penalty kill, which is solid considering they spent the first round dealing with a power play that has Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point on it. The Leafs will once again be forced to hang on for dear life when down a man, but their power play should be able to generate lots of chances and goals on the Panthers’ penalty kill and as long as that penalty kill can keep the dam from breaking, then the Leafs can win the all-important special teams battle.
Advantage: Toronto. This is entirely because Toronto has a better penalty kill than Florida. If you’re just looking at power plays, I’d call this one a draw, but the Panthers’ penalty kill has been the team’s soft underbelly the whole year and Toronto, while not exactly monstrously good at the penalty kill, can at least be passable in that regard as they showed in round 1 against Tampa.
COACHING
Should I take back everything I ever said about Paul Maurice? Or should I wait until he delivers us a cup (if he delivers us a cup)? I’ll choose the latter, but I’ll concede that he did a good job dealing with Boston and keeping everyone in that locker room focused. It was easy to see the team being down in the dumps before game 5, but the team got a lucky break, cashed in the win and rode the momentum from there. The Bruins had issues dealing with the Panthers’ forecheck (not for a lack of trying though. Jim Montgomery at least tried to make changes to deal with that) and the team just seemed to be more comfortable as the underdog. They’re the underdog again for this series, but I doubt Toronto will come in entirely underestimating them and expecting an easy series. They saw what happened to Boston and won’t want it to happen to them; Maurice will have to find away to handle whatever Toronto attempts to throw at the Panthers, especially since the league now really knows what this team can do if you underestimate them. If he can keep everyone grounded and just have them take it one game at a time, then they could do it again.
Sheldon Keefe saved his job. At least that’s what the narrative is in the media now that Toronto won a playoff series, but as a Panthers fan, I don’t entirely believe that. If Keefe isn’t sure if he should believe that, all he should do is look and see the coach he’s facing here. The Panthers made the second round for the first time in 26 years last season, yet gave Andrew Brunette the boot after an awful second round series. Keefe may not be under that kind of scrutiny, but I doubt that he would want to go down as poorly as the Panthers did last year after ending their drought. Keefe probably will want to at least fight hard in this series in order to basically guarantee that he’ll be able to stick around (MLSE and Dubas may not be as trigger-happy as Panthers management but better to be safe than sorry, right?). It’s a tough challenge for him as so much of his tenure was spent just trying to win one series, and now that they have there’s kind of a lull likely going around the room; almost as if no one is really sure what to do next since they finally got the white whale they had been chasing for so long. It’s up to Keefe to find something to drag that drive and motivation out of his team if they want to prolong their season even further than round 2.
Advantage: Neither. I don’t expect one team to tactically spank the other here or one coach to wildly out-coach the other. Most of the series I think will come down to luck and momentum more than anything that the coaches do between the benches. Decisions will still matter and how the coaches adapt to situations and keep the players heads on straight will be important, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the more ‘coach-dependent’ elements of the game more or less cancel each other out.
INTANGIBLES
For the Panthers, they have one huge intangible on their side: momentum. They won 3 straight games against Boston and played with so much swagger and confidence. They’re saying all the right things heading into this series and after their OT winner in Game 7, they just seem to have some serious moxie about them. They have plenty of toughness in the lineup as well; while I think Nick Cousins on the second line is overplaying him, there’s no denying that the guy can forecheck aggressively better than almost the entire bottom six. The leadership in the room finally seems to actually be acting like leaders (particularly Matthew Tkachuk) and there just seems to be so much more fire in the team, even more than they had heading into the Boston series despite their hot finish to the season.
For the Maple Leafs, they seem to have finally found the right players to give them the intangibles that they need in order to succeed in the playoffs thanks to Ryan O’Reilly, who’s given the team an incredible source of valuable leadership and playoff experience (while also still being good at hockey unlike Joe Thornton and Nick Foligno in their Leafs’ tenures). Luke Schenn seems to be providing this on the backend and he’s done an excellent job being the veteran leader on the blue line for the Leafs. They also seem to have a lot of positive energy and confidence heading into this series, but that could also be detrimental if their motivation more or less evaporates since they achieved the goal of getting past the first round and finally getting that monkey off their back.
Advantage: Florida. It’s hard to figure out if Toronto’s attitudes and confidence are going to motivate them to try and push harder now that they’re finally in the second round or if they’re so happy that they finally achieved that that they’re just not sure what to do. The Panthers do seem to have more physicality and aggression to their game and the fact that team leadership is finally starting to act like true leaders make the Panthers a daunting takedown no matter what, especially if Barkov can finally figure out that aggression that he seemed to pick up a bit later on in the Boston series.
PLAYER TO WATCH
For the Panthers, I’m gonna go a bit off the board and say Anton Lundell. Yes, I know Matthew Tkachuk is him and he’s everything the team wanted and more, but if I pick Tkachuk, that’s too obvious and it doesn’t make for an interesting conversation. I’m choosing the 2020 12th overall pick mostly because despite his sophomore slump, he’s come into his own later on in the season and looked quite good at several points in the Boston series. Being able to have cost-controlled young players step up and do well in the postseason is critical to any team’s run and if Lundell can continue his positive momentum even despite the pretty poor season he had where seemingly nothing was coming together for him, then he could end up being a key difference maker for the Cats in this series.
For the Maple Leafs, it has to be Ryan O’Reilly. If there’s a player on Toronto that concerns me, it’s him. Remember how T.J. Oshie terrorized the Panthers in the Washington series? O’Reilly is basically that guy for the Leafs and while the Panthers do seem better equipped and more experienced to handle it, O’Reilly lives for this kind of stuff. He won the 2019 Conn Smythe Trophy for a reason and was named the Blues captain after Alex Pietrangelo left for a reason. When I watched a game in that Tampa-Toronto series, the commentators always seemed to remark about the kind of impact O’Reilly had on the room when he got there and how important of a player he was for the Leafs in their playoff push. Matthews vs. Barkov and Marner vs. Tkachuk will get all the headlines, but if the Leafs are going to get clutch goals or clutch plays or faceoff wins from anyone, it’s going to be Ryan O’Reilly. This is the guy that the Leafs will look to to get out there and change the pace of the game to help get the rest of the team back in the swing of things. The Maple Leafs’ stars will draw a lot of eyes (as they should since they’ll have to be on their game in order to win the series regardless), but for me, the guy who could easily make or break this series for Toronto is wearing #90, not #34.
X-FACTOR
For the Panthers, the X-factor is once again goaltending. I hate to be a broken record on this one, but when you’re the underdog, you need your goaltending to steal games for you in order to win the series. Alex Lyon did that in Game 2 in Boston and Sergei Bobrovsky had 44 saves in Game 5 and 33 saves in Game 7 as the Panthers swiped both games at TD Garden in order to win the series. If they’re going to win another series, they need the goaltending to once again be great and steal games away from Toronto, especially at Scotiabank Arena. They went back to FLA Live Arena tied 1-1 in the Boston series (they did lose both games 3 and 4 at home though) and if they can do so in this Toronto series or even head back to Sunrise up 2-0, then they’ll be in excellent position to make it to the conference finals, but the goaltending will have to be playing at a very high level in order for all that to happen.
For the Maple Leafs, the x-factor is going to be their defense. This mostly is due to the fact that the Leafs will have to be able to move the puck quickly in order to keep the Panthers’ aggressive forecheck from getting into a rhythm and forcing defensive zone turnovers, which were critical in the Panthers’ efforts to take down the Boston Bruins. The Leafs will need to be able to protect the puck and their defensemen will have to be able to handle the forecheck when they had plenty of issues dealing with Tampa Bay’s 1-1-3 forecheck in the first round. Keefe seemed to run 7 defensemen to try and make this work later on in the series against Tampa, using Erik Gustafsson as a 7th defenseman to assist in the puck-moving efforts to help beat the forecheck. Now, the unit for Toronto has to face the Panthers’ more aggressive 1-2-2 forecheck that puts waves of pressure on defensemen in their own zone. If they fail to handle the pressure and constantly give away the puck in their own zone, then Toronto will have a very difficult series; if they succeed, then they can effectively neuter the Panthers’ offense and make it a lot easier for them to win the series.
FINAL PREDICTION
Panthers in 6
I think that the Leafs might honestly be an easier matchup for the Panthers than Boston. The Leafs certainly will not be an easy out but unless the Panthers get so high on their own fumes from beating Boston that they forget to take care of business and do the little things right, they should be able to clinch a trip to the conference finals for the first time since 1996. And by the way if you would’ve told me at Christmas that I would be predicting the Paul Maurice coached Panthers to make the Eastern Conference Finals, I would’ve laughed in your face and called you insane.
All data sources from hockey-reference.com and I used R/RStudio to organize the data and calculate the percentages