Maple Leafs, Panthers face off in position they never expected originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The Toronto Maple Leafs and Florida Panthers faced off in a much bigger matchup last spring.
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This time around, on Saturday night, it’ll be a depressing showdown instead.
The Leafs and Panthers clashed in the playoffs at the end of the 2024-25 season as Florida was on its way to repeating as Stanley Cup champs.
Now, both have been eliminated from playoff contention. Toronto hosts Florida on Saturday night, but the stakes aren’t much of anything at all.
Really, only draft pick positioning is on the line.
In that regard, Florida is in a safer spot than Toronto. The Panthers traded away their first-round pick for this year but with protections — if it’s top-10, they keep it, which seems likely at this point even if it didn’t seem that way when they traded it.
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The Maple Leafs only keep their pick if it’s top-five. If not, it goes to the Bruins.
Entering Saturday’s game, the Leafs seem likely to have the sixth-best lottery odds, which makes it more likely that the selection conveys to Boston than stays in Toronto.
Not that the players on the ice have any part in this, but the Maple Leafs have more motivation to lose than the Panthers. Toronto has put together a couple of convincing losses in the row, and they aren’t exactly putting the best roster out on the ice at the moment, either.
It’s certainly a far cry from an intense playoff series. In some years, this may have been an end-of-season appetizer for the bigger games.
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This year, though, the Maple Leafs and Panthers are just waiting for it to be over.
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