The Toronto Maple Leafs had a chance to increase their lead atop the Atlantic Division on Tuesday night but failed at it.
Instead of growing the gap with the reigning Stanley Cup champions, the Leafs were outworked and outplayed by the Florida Panthers in a 3–1 loss.
Maple Leafs forward Matthew Knies, 22, didn’t sugarcoat what happened, blaming his team for its "soft" play against the Panthers.
“It's always physical. We expect that when we come in here that it's going to be a hard battle. And, yeah, so we knew it was going to be like this,” Knies said. ”We tried to push back, but I think we didn't do a good enough job.
”I think our physicality... I think we were a little bit soft in some areas and not through the full 60. So, yeah, we're going to have to learn to do that when it comes to playoff time.”
The Panthers outshot the Leafs 37–18, outhit them 43–29, and won 69% of the faceoffs on Tuesday. On top of that, Toronto also gave away the puck 18 times—more than double Florida’s total.
“They wanted it more than us,” Leafs head coach Craig Berube said. “It starts in a face-off circle. They were 70% tonight.
“To me, it comes down to competitiveness and digging in more. They seemed like a more desperate team than us.“
The Leafs had entered the night on a four-game winning streak and were tied 1–1 entering the third period. But Eetu Luostarinen broke that tie early, and Carter Verhaeghe sealed Florida's win with an empty-netter.
Toronto dropped to 1–3–0 on their regular-season series against the Panthers.
Toronto faces Tampa Bay on Wednesday in a matchup with major seeding implications while also facing the possibility of being overtaken by the Panthers before the season is over.
The Lightning (45-26-4) sit just two points back (96 to 98) of the Maple Leafs (47-26-4), with both teams having a game in hand on the 45-29-4 Panthers with 94 points.
