Instant Reaction: Maple Leafs’ bottom six comes alive in 4-1 win vs. Panthers
The Toronto Maple Leafs have been carried by their star players for much of the 2025-26 season, and it’s one of the reasons they’re underperforming as much as they are. Coming off a confidence-boosting 7-2 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Maple Leafs came into a pivotal early-season matchup against the Florida Panthers and grabbed two points thanks to a coming out party from their depth forwards.
The Maple Leafs’ third line accounted for both of the team’s first two goals, with the first being defenceman Troy Stecher’s first goal as a Leaf with assists to Dakota Joshua and Bobby McMann. The second goal was a pretty play in front of the net from Dakota Joshua, with McMann and Stecher grabbing the assists. While Nic Roy didn’t contribute to any of these goals, he provided a pivotal screen in front of Sergei Bobrovsky which helped Stecher beat him through traffic, and he had some big chances later in the game as well.
The third goal of the game came within the last ten minutes of the third period, and it went to a candidate that needed one more than anybody in Scott Laughton. You could see the relief on his face after he cleaned up a rebound in front of Bobrovsky and scored what’s only his third goal since joining the Maple Leafs at the 2025 trade deadline. Laughton has had multiple injury-related bad breaks this season, so to see him finally get rewarded one had to have felt good for the entire bench.
People love to refer to wins like these as ‘a meaningless game in December’, maybe less so in this case because it came against a division rival, but it goes to show that there’s no such thing as a meaningless game. The Leafs haven’t won more than three games in a row yet this season, so the temperature is already higher than normal to get two points and there’s an extra element of pressure doing it against a team like Florida.
Joseph Woll was solid once again en route to a 25-save performance on 26 shots, and it can’t be overstated how much his return and subsequent success has meant to a team that struggled to get a save for the better part of the first month of the year.
The Maple Leafs will look to win their third in a row and continue building some real momentum as they wrap up their road trip against the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday.
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