Maple Leafs, Panthers play out the string with youngsters

The Toronto Maple Leafs will host the Florida Panthers in something of an anticlimactic Saturday night bout.

The reigning Stanley Cup champion Panthers (37-38-4, 78 points) and their 2025 Eastern Conference semifinal victims find themselves at the bottom of the Atlantic Division with three games remaining.

The Maple Leafs (32-33-14, 78 points), who will miss their first postseason since 2016, continued their downward spiral on Thursday night with an ugly 5-3 loss to the New York Islanders. Rookie netminder Artur Akhtyamov faced 44 shots in his first NHL start.

"We had 60 shot attempts or so tonight. Fifteen of them hit the net," Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube said after his team's fourth consecutive loss. "That's really a lot of the story for me."

The silver lining to Toronto's late-season turmoil is the potential to rescue its first-round pick. The Leafs dealt it to the Boston Bruins in March 2025 as part of the trade to acquire defenseman Brandon Carlo. If they finish in the league's bottom five, though, the Maple Leafs retain the pick and Boston must wait for either their 2027 or 2028 first-round selection depending on their fortunes next season.

Five NHL teams enter Saturday's action with fewer than 78 points, but the bottom five remains realistic for Toronto as the Seattle Kraken are fifth-worst with 77 points and one additional game to play.

It may well be someone from the Florida Panthers' front office tasked with retooling the Maple Leafs this offseason, regardless of where that draft pick lands. Panthers assistant general manager Sunny Mehta has emerged as the betting favorite to become Toronto's next general manager after the recent firing of Brad Treliving.

A slew of injuries has left the Leafs' lineup decorated with new faces and elevated role players. Forward Luke Haymes made his NHL debut against the Islanders and recorded his first point. Rookie Easton Cowan, who tied the game in the second period, was fourth among Toronto forwards with 18:54 of ice time.

"I like to say ‘work before skill' a lot of the time. I think (Cowan) has kind of grabbed that side of things," said Berube, who did not provide an update on injuries to goaltender Anthony Stolarz, forward Dakota Joshua or Carlo. "Easton works and skates. He gets rewarded."

Player-for-player, though, the Panthers are the substantially more depleted team. Defenseman Seth Jones joined their sprawling list of injury absences after breaking his foot in their Tuesday night loss to Montreal. That list includes Aleksander Barkov, Aaron Ekblad, Brad Marchand, Sam Reinhart and Niko Mikkola. Matthew Tkachuk missed the last two games to be with his wife for the birth of his first child.

Given the circumstances, coach Paul Maurice was empathetic after the Panthers' 5-1 loss to the Ottawa Senators on Thursday. He had particularly high praise for defensemen Marek Alscher and Ludvig Jansson after their NHL debuts.

"Really, really happy with his game," Maurice said of Alscher, who logged nearly 20 minutes of ice time. "That's an awful lot to ask a guy and then to go in with another guy who spent most of his time in the American (Hockey) League."

Berube and Maurice both indicated they would continue to experiment on Saturday.

Toronto has won two of the teams' three meetings this season. The Panthers hope to snap their own four-game losing streak. They have allowed 22 goals over the difficult stretch.

--Field Level Media