How can the Toronto Maple Leafs overcome the Florida Panthers dirty play and the referees?

During the NHL Playoffs, there are always two givens, two assumed truths, if you will.

1. The physicality ramps up
2. NHL officiating becomes even more of a guessing game

In this season’s NHL, few teams thrive under these circumstances more than Paul Maurice’s defending Stanley Cup Champion Florida Panthers.

Sure, the team saw an exodus of players this past offseason. Some weren’t a fit, like Vladimir Tarasenko. Some simply played their way out of Florida’s price range, in Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Anthony Stolarz. And some, Florida had decided, weren’t all that important (Steven Lorentz). With three of those depth Panthers heading to Toronto, it would suggest that perhaps the Toronto Maple Leafs had closed the gap.

Luckily for us, we find out if this is truly the case Monday night, as Florida rolls into Scotiabank to take on Toronto in the second round of the NHL Playoffs.

Know your opponent

After a 52-win, Atlantic-clinching, Stanley Cup-winning season, Florida looks…scarier. If going 16–6–2 in the playoffs last year wasn’t enough, Florida bolstered their depth even more this season.

Rookie Mackie Samoskevich blossomed down the stretch after Matthew Tkachuk’s injury, and despite being in and out of the playoff lineup, is an injection of offence and creativity that Maurice has in his back pocket. Nate Schmidt has become somewhat of a folk hero in Florida after his impressive first-round performance.

I would be remiss, however, if I didn’t highlight the boogie man.

That’s right, Brad Marchand is a Florida Panther.

Marchand, as a player, encapsulates the very meaning of playoff hockey and, by extension, the Florida Panthers. He’s physical, has clutch scoring, and he’s a sneakily dirty player, a pest.

Add him to a team with fellow antagonist in superstar Matthew Tkachuk, Brazilian jiu-jitsu specialist Sam Bennett (yes, we all remember what he did to Matthew Knies in 2022–23), and a trio of tenacious, hardworking Fins in Barkov (I know I’m underselling him here), Lundell and Luostarinen…and you have a Stanley Cup-favourite calibre forward group. That’s not even including Sam Reinhart, Carter Verhaeghe and Evan Rodrigues, who are all dangerous offensive forwards, albeit some more than others.

What encapsulates this group of forwards, however, is their coach, Paul Maurice. Up against Boston in 2023, Maurice had a viral mic’d up moment.

“You get a 3–1 lead, and now you want to make plays. F*** the plays. Pound their F****** D, so in Game 7 they have nothing left.”

This mentality is what Toronto will have to go up against. It’s the blend of talent, physicality, and after-whistle shenanigans all wrapped into a relentless, tight forechecking game plan marshalled by Maurice. Alone, that would be a challenge enough for the Leafs, however, there’s another factor at play.

The Refs

I don’t want to be the guy who starts harping on the referees before the series even starts. I try to at least be patient enough to wait at least 30 seconds into Game 1 before I start hollering at my screen for missed calls. However, Florida’s one of those teams that has mastered what I like to call the “Playoff Whistle Algorithm.”

It’s a talent, and I laud them for it. They, like the 2010s Bruins and the Lightning in their prime years, have realized that the further you go in the playoffs, the less referees want to make the call that directly impacts the outcome of a game.

They can’t call everything, and they try not to call too much, and as a result, if you’re subtle enough with it, you can get away with pretty much everything.

How Sam Bennett got away with concussing Matthew Knies two years ago is beyond me, and Toronto should go into the series fully aware that Florida will be up to their usual tricks behind the play and after the whistle. They should also know that, for the most part, the officials will call some of the overtly obvious ones, but will also let most of it go.

The challenge for Toronto will be to play their game and not let Florida take the front foot and dictate the way this series will be played. The Panthers are a scary beast, but Toronto has the requisite talent to win this series.

The Leafs game plan

Toronto dummied Ottawa early in the series, riding a red-hot power play as well as a defensively sound game plan that was centred around forcing Ottawa to take perimeter-based shots on their 6’7” goalie. For the majority of the series, it worked. Outside of a disastrous Game 5, I didn’t think Ottawa was particularly threatening in the other games of the series.

Toronto’s key to success in combating the Panthers game plan and the referees comes down to three factors:

1. Execute on the Power Play

Yes, we know the referees will miss a ton of calls, Florida will be absolute pests for every second of every game, but when the refs do make a call, Toronto must be prepared to answer the bell. The five forward unit was on fire early on against Ottawa, but they slowly reverted to their fancy overpassing tendencies in the middle of the series.

Quick passing, get the puck on net and be the first to the rebound. Dominate the ice in front of Bobrovsky; that’s when Toronto played their best playoff hockey against Vasy and Ullmark, and it needs to continue.

1. Discipline is key

Toronto’s penalty kill got better and better as the series went on, but they also were going up against an Ottawa team that really struggled to get going on the power play post-4 Nations. The Panthers have a dangerous power play that has missed Tkachuk and Barkov for long stretches of the year. Toronto can’t afford to get into penalty trouble trying to play the Panthers game.

We’ve seen this scenario play out year after year, with the Bruins, Lightning and Panthers. The refs will catch the retaliating Leaf and not the initial act. Toronto needs to play a clean game and do what they did against Ottawa.

1. Start strong

The biggest way to negate the Panthers’ game plan is to score and score early. Force them to chase the game, and that allows you to be disciplined and force the Panthers to make mistakes trying to force the issue.

Toronto saw how well that worked against Ottawa in Game 1, and Toronto’s been the best team in the NHL this season at holding leads going into the third period. They’re clearly a different team from years past, they relish the challenge of holding the fort in the third period, and with the blueline Treliving has built, this team is built to play that style.

They aren’t unbeatable

In conclusion, this will likely be Toronto’s biggest challenge this entire playoff run. The Panthers are a nightmare fuel playoff match-up up but Toronto has the quality in all three facets of the game to come out on top. They just need to execute on special teams, stay out of the mud and get off to strong starts to dictate the pace of the game.