They wanted Florida. Now the Maple Leafs get the Panthers in Round 2 again, for 2nd time in 3 years

Sometime during Round 1 of the Toronto-Ottawa series, Maple Leafs fans joined in unison and began chanting.

“We want Florida!”

They used the same chant in 2023, and even though that series didn’t go to the Leafs’ liking, they wanted a rematch — which will happen. The defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers will open an Eastern Conference second-round series on Monday night in Toronto, the second time the teams will have met in Round 2 of the playoffs in the past three years.

Florida beat the Leafs in five games in 2023.

“They’ve had a significant change. Half our teams are different,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “So, there’s not much at all to be used from that series.”

Leafs defenseman Morgan Reilly said his club feels the same way.

“They have different people over there. We have different people in here,” Reilly said. “I think the playoff mindset in general remains the same, but I think that there’s differences with both teams and with structure and systems and whatnot.”

Toronto has 56 wins this season including playoffs, second most in the NHL behind Winnipeg. And Toronto has won 27 road games, the most in the league. The Leafs ousted Ottawa — and Brady Tkachuk — in Round 1 and now get Florida — and Matthew Tkachuk, Brady’s brother — as their reward.

“It’s going to be probably a harder series, even,” said Leafs coach Craig Berube, who has made tons of right moves in Year 1 of his Toronto tenure. “We won the series, we’re past that now and we’re starting to focus on Florida and get prepared for Florida.”

The Panthers, bidding for a third straight trip to the Stanley Cup Final, have more wins than anyone in the NHL over the past three seasons. And they’re starting a series on the road for the seventh time in that span — going 4-2 in the previous Game 1s away from home since the start of the 2023 playoffs.

“We don’t mind it,” Florida forward Evan Rodrigues said. “Going in, starting on the road and being able to steal one and trying to take the crowd out of it gives you a little extra boost, I would say.”

The season series

Florida went 3-1-0 in the season series against Toronto, outscoring the Maple Leafs 13-7 and outshooting the Leafs 117-93.

The Panthers peppered Toronto in those games; the 117 shots on goal obviously doesn’t take into account 73 blocked shots by the Leafs in those four matchups.

Toronto probably learned in those four games that it cannot take unnecessary penalties. Florida went 5 for 11 on the power play in the season series, while Toronto went 1 for 9 — and gave up a short-handed goal to the Panthers as well.

It should be noted that both teams would say the regular season doesn’t mean much; Toronto went 3-0-1 against the Panthers two years ago and Florida went on to win the postseason matchup in five games.

“The regular season doesn’t tell you anything,” Maurice said.

The Marchand factor

Panthers forward Brad Marchand certainly knows his way around Toronto at this time of year.

No active player has more playoff games, goals, assists or points against the Maple Leafs than Marchand, a trade-deadline pickup by Florida.

Marchand has appeared in 28 playoff games against Toronto, with 10 goals, 19 assists and 29 points. He faced Toronto in four series while with Boston — all went seven games, and the Bruins won Game 7 every time.

The Leafs’ power play

Toronto has been running a power-play unit that’s unusual — five forwards at times, playing to its strength. The primary group: Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares, William Nylander and Matthew Knies.

It was lethal in Round 1 against Ottawa. The Leafs went 6 for 17 with the man advantage in that series, connecting on nearly 20% of their shots in those opportunities.

That was a far cry from how the power play was at the end of the regular season, when Toronto finished the season 6-for-31 in those spots over the final 14 games heading into the playoffs.

The ties that bind

The Maple Leafs have three players — defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson, forward Steven Lorentz and goaltender Anthony Stolarz — who were with the Panthers for their run to the Stanley Cup last season.

Maurice is one of three men who have coached both Florida and Toronto. The others: Roger Neilson and Peter Horachek.

The droughts

Most hockey aficionados know — and Toronto fans are acutely, perhaps even painfully aware — that the Maple Leafs haven’t won the Stanley Cup since 1967, which also happened to be the last season in which the team made it to the title series.

This one might be equally hard to fathom: Toronto hasn’t even gotten past Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs since 2002. In fact, this is only the third trip for the Leafs to this round in that span — they lost to Philadelphia in 2004 and Florida in 2023.

Toronto has used 361 different players and eight different coaches — Maurice among them — in that span since its last trip to the NHL’s final four.

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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl