2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs: Maple Leafs vs. Panthers Eastern 2nd Round preview

The second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs features eight teams in four best-of-7 series, which start Monday. Today, NHL.com previews the Eastern Conference Second Round between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Florida Panthers.

(1A) Toronto Maple Leafs vs. (3A) Florida Panthers

Maple Leafs: 52-26-4, 108 points
Panthers: 47-31-4, 98 points
Season series: TOR: 1-3-0; FLA: 3-1-0
Game 1: Monday at Toronto (8 p.m. ET; CBC, TVAS, SN, ESPN)

Combined, the Toronto Maple Leafs and Florida Panthers occupied first place in the Atlantic Division for 174 of 178 game days during the 2024-25 season, so it stands to reason that the two teams would be facing off in the Eastern Conference Second Round.

After the Panthers dispatched the Tampa Bay Lightning in five games and the Maple Leafs outlasted the Ottawa Senators in the first round, the two teams will match up in the second round for the second time in three years.

The teams last met in 2023, a five-game victory for the Panthers as they made it to their first of two consecutive Stanley Cup Final appearances, winning the Cup the next season.

“I feel excited, definitely,” Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky said. “Playing against Toronto in Canada, it’s probably one of the best atmospheres to play in. Capital of the hockey. It’s going to be a good challenge. They have a good team – good offense, defense, good goaltender. It’s going to be a good challenge for us and all of us are excited.”

But it won’t be easy. The Maple Leafs come in with some high-powered offense, though the Panthers have the defense to match it. They limited the Lightning to 12 goals in five games, including going 2-for-18 on the power play.

It will be up to Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and John Tavares to find ways to solve the pressure and aggressiveness of the Florida defense, including their smothering forecheck.

“It’s going to be another tough series,” Matthews said. “It’s the defending champs, back-to-back Cup Finals. It’s going to be hard. We’ve got to reset and do our homework and rest up, do what we can, go in there with confidence and go in there with pushback.”

The Maple Leafs won the first three games of their series against the Senators before dropping two potential elimination games to them before emerging with the victory in Game 6.

The Panthers had an easier-than-expected series against the Lightning, winning in five games, even though they were missing defenseman Aaron Ekblad for three of the games (all wins). They will be without Ekblad again in Game 1, after he was suspended for two games for elbowing Brandon Hagel in Game 4 against the Lightning.

One area the Panthers are confident that they have an edge is in experience. It’s not surprising after they have been to the Cup Final in each of the past two seasons; the Maple Leafs have not been past the second round since 2002.

“Experience is the one aspect of it – we have a lot of guys who went through those series and that year and last year and now this year,” Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov said. “We have a lot more experience playing in the playoffs.

“But every year is different. They have a lot of new guys, new systems, new coach. They’ve been playing really well this year, they played good in the first round, so it’s going to be tough either way. All we can do is just concentrate on ourselves and our game and our game plan and go and do it.”

Game breakers

Maple Leafs: There are many choices on the stacked offense of the Maple Leafs, but Nylander was the team’s leading scorer in the first round against the Ottawa Senators, with nine points (three goals, six assists) in six games, including four points (one goal, three assists) on the power play. When Nylander is on, he can be a game-changer, as witnessed in the two goals and assist he had in the deciding Game 6. For the Maple Leafs to get past the punishing Panthers, they will need everything that Nylander can give them.

Panthers: Matthew Tkachuk is the ultimate game-breaker and the ultimate game-breaker in the playoffs. He kicked off the first-round series against the Lightning by scoring two goals in his first game back after missing the final 25 games of the regular season, and the Panthers have increased his minutes in each game since then. He’s now a seasoned playoff performer, the type of player seemingly always able to get a crucial goal or throw a big-time hit, and one with few equals in the NHL right now. The biggest question with Tkachuk is whether he’s finally back to full health. Despite his five points (three goals, two assists) in five games against the Lightning, he didn’t seem to be moving quite like himself. A short series against Tampa Bay may help him as Florida moves into the next round.

Goaltending

Maple Leafs: During the regular season, the Maple Leafs split their starts fairly evenly, with Joseph Woll getting 41 starts and Anthony Stolarz getting 33. But like many coaches do in the playoffs, the Maple Leafs have narrowed their starter to one, with Stolarz getting all six starts in the postseason, including Game 6 after Toronto dropped Games 4 and 5. He has a 2.21 goals-against average and .901 save percentage in the playoffs after a 2.14 GAA and .926 save percentage in the regular season. Woll was 27-14-1 this season with a 2.73 GAA and .909 save percentage.

Panthers: Any questions that lingered about Bobrovsky were answered last season when he was outstanding in helping the Panthers to their first Stanley Cup. He was, once again, excellent against the Lightning in the first round, especially in Game 5 with two absolutely crucial bang-bang saves on Erik Cernak and Gage Goncalves in the second period. He finished with a 2.21 GAA and .901 save percentage in the series, giving up three or fewer goals in each of the Panthers’ four wins. He is backed up by Vitek Vanecek, who came over earlier this season in a trade; he saw no time in goal in the first round.

Numbers to know

Maple Leafs: 3. Three members of the Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup last season with the Panthers: Stolarz, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Steven Lorentz. It’s only the second time that has happened after Wayne Gretzky, Mike Krushelnyski and Marty McSorley played for the Los Angeles Kings against the Edmonton Oilers in the 1989 Smythe Division Semifinals.

Panthers: 4-0. Brad Marchand, traded to the Panthers from the Boston Bruins ahead of the 2025 NHL Trade Deadline, will skate in his fifth career playoff series against the Maple Leafs (2013, 2018, 2019, 2024), and he has won each series. He has the sixth-most playoff points against the Maple Leafs in NHL history with 29. With at least three points, he would pass Maurice Richard and Ted Lindsay (31) to move into fourth.

They said it

“It’s hard to say he’s better than a Vezina year, obviously, but I think just his work ethic has never changed, whether he has a great year or a bad year, he comes to the rink prepared, the same exact way. He has his routine that he does every single game, every single practice day. And when your best players do that, when they’re already at the top of their game, when they’re still trying to get better this late in his career like this, it just spreads through the team. That’s a great thing for us because we know he’s going to be at the top of his game and we’ve got to be there for him as well.” -- Panthers defenseman Seth Jones on Bobrovsky

“You’ve got to play hard between the whistles. I think that's what you’ve got to focus on. You’ve got to protect your net. You got to do your job. There's … different scenarios that come up, but we want to play hard between the whistles. We got to be physical. We got to match their physicality, and got to be disciplined.” -- Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube on facing the Panthers

Will win if …

Maple Leafs: They can get their power play going. Against the Lightning’s power play (25.9 percent in the regular season, fifth in the NHL), the Panthers played shutdown defense, allowing a single goal in Game 1 and a single goal in Game 5, killing 15 straight in between. All told, they went 2-for-18 in the series. Toronto’s power play was tied for eighth in the regular season (24.8 percent) and went 6-for-17 against the Senators in the first round. If they can get their power play going, it will go a long way against the Panthers.

Panthers: They stay on the right side of the line. The Panthers are big hitters, a team of players not afraid to intimidate an opponent, to get in their faces. But the Panthers crossed the line in the first round, with defenseman Niko Mikkola earning a game misconduct for boarding in Game 4 and Ekblad earning the two-game suspension for elbowing. They’ll need to keep control against the Maple Leafs.

How they look

Maple Leafs projected lineup

Matthew Knies -- Auston Matthews -- Mitch Marner

Max Pacioretty -- John Tavares -- William Nylander

Bobby McMann -- Pontus Holmberg -- Max Domi

Calle Jarnkrok -- Scott Laughton -- Steven Lorentz

Morgan Rielly -- Brandon Carlo

Jake McCabe -- Chris Tanev

Simon Benoit -- Oliver Ekman-Larsson

Anthony Stolarz

Joseph Woll

Scratched: Dakota Mermis, Philippe Myers, David Kampf, Artur Akhtyamov, Nicholas Robertson

Injured: Jani Hakanpaa (lower body)

Panthers projected lineup

Carter Verhaeghe -- Aleksander Barkov -- Sam Reinhart

Mackie Samoskevich -- Sam Bennett -- Matthew Tkachuk

Eetu Luostarinen -- Anton Lundell -- Brad Marchand

Evan Rodrigues -- Nico Sturm -- Jesper Boqvist

Gustav Forsling – Seth Jones

Niko Mikkola -- Dmitry Kulikov

Uvis Balinskis -- Nate Schmidt

Sergei Bobrovsky

Vitek Vanecek

Scratched: Rasmus Asplund, Jonah Gadjovich, A.J. Greer, Tomas Nosek, Matt Kiersted, Jaycob Megna

Injured: None

Suspended: Aaron Ekblad