The Maple Leafs channeled their playoff-ready defensive identity against the Panthers, backed by a dialed-in Joseph Woll, proving they have the structure needed to silence their biggest critics.
SUNRISE, Fla. — That’s the type of game the Toronto Maple Leafs needed, and the one that looked a lot more like last season’s team. The Leafs defeated the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers 4-1 at Amerant Bank Arena on Tuesday. And for much of the second and third periods, they looked like the defensive-minded team that knew how to lock down games.
Sure, the Panthers are missing key players due to injury and now sit at the bottom of the Atlantic Division following the loss with a 12-12-1 record, but a win is a win. The Leafs looked like a team that knew how to lock it down, executing faster in transition. They outshot Florida 30-27. They dominated on faceoffs winning 72 percent of them. And they were perfect on the penalty kill.
The only flaw seemed to be their power play, which is ranked 26th in the NHL and which conceded the Panthers' only goal—a shorthanded marker due to the Leafs’ five-forward experiment with Auston Matthews at center. In fact, that goal denied Joseph Woll of a shutout. The goaltender has been dialed in since returning from a personal leave. He made 26 saves on 27 shots to improve his save percentage to .925 through seven games this season.
When Woll wasn’t busy, the Leafs took care of business. What stood out was the pace of the game. Maybe it was the breather in the schedule but the Leafs didn’t look slow. They attacked the offensive zone with speed.
“I would say, one of the fastest-paced games we played all year, I thought we just closed on people and checked,” Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube said. “When we had pucks, we skated and attacked, and our forward check was good tonight. So pace was really good tonight.”
While the Leafs have now won three of their last four games, this specific game felt significant having been marked on the calendar for a while. Much of the focus going into the game was Toronto taking on a Panthers team that eliminated them in the second round of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs. And while players like Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk were not in the lineup due to injury, Brad Marchand certainly was.
Marchand talked about how Toronto was still a contending team despite their struggles and that any opinion otherwise was false. Despite trying to kill them with kindness, which is a strength of the superpest, he may have proven Toronto right. The importance of the victory was clear in the locker room.
"That's a big one. Obviously there's a bit of history here. It's just something we can build off of and take that energy and ride that momentum,” Bobby McMann said of the win.
Everything seemed to come together. Troy Stecher scored his first goal in seven games since being acquired by the Leafs on waivers. He’s quickly moved up to the second defense pair. Dakota Joshua has found his scoring touch with goals in back-to-back games while his linemates Nicolas Roy and McMann may be Toronto’s most ideal third line. And with his empty-net goal, John Tavares appears to be on pace for one of his most productive seasons yet with 13 goals and 16 assists in 26 games.
The Leafs badly needed to string together good games, and here, they appear to have found their identity again. Now it’s up to them to build off it.
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