Toronto Maple Leafs' Matthew Knies celebrates his goal with Auston Matthews and Chris Tanev during third period NHL action in Toronto on April 2.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
Not that it was much in question, but the Maple Leafs officially qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs on Wednesday with a 3-2 victory over the Florida Panthers at Scotiabank Arena. More importantly, they put some space between themselves and the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida in the NHL’s Atlantic Division with just seven regular-season games remaining.
The division winner gets the home-ice advantage in the first round of the postseason. The Lightning are now three points in arrears and the Panthers four. Toronto plays both of them on the road next week.
“Winning the division is not the end and the be all, but first place would be great,” head coach Craig Berube said afterward. “But that’s still a ways away.”
John Tavares, Mitch Marner and Matthew Knies each scored for Toronto, with the latter credited with the game-winner. Knies broke in on Florida goalie Sergei Bobrovsky and pushed a backhand past him to put the Maple Leafs ahead 3-1 with 4:51 remaining in the third period. The Panthers, the reigning Stanley Cup champions, scored on a late power play but were unable to forge a tie.
Anthony Stolarz, who won a Stanley Cup ring last year as Sergei Bobrovsky’s backup in Sunrise, had 29 saves in the victory. Bobrovsky stopped 23 of the 26 shots he faced.
Tavares, who scored a league-high 13 goals in March, now has 36 on the season. That is tied for the fourth most in the 34-year-old centre’s 16-year career. He was the NHL’s second star in March, when he accrued 20 points in 15 games.
“Everything seems to be going in for him,” Knies said. “He has been a huge part of our success during this playoff race.”
Tavares tied the game at 1-1 in the second period when he tipped in a shot by William Nylander. Florida had taken the lead earlier in the period on a blistering slap shot by Gustav Forsling.
“It’s a special thing to win a division, like the Stanley Cup,” Tavares said. “We punched our ticket tonight and gave ourselves an opportunity. Getting the home-ice advantage is not something that gets talked about every day, but your goal is to finish as high as you can.”
The Panthers held a five-point lead over the Maple Leafs after winning 5-2 at Scotiabank Arena on March 13. They have gone 3-6 since then, and lost their last three in a row as a visitor. At the same time Toronto has gone 7-2-1.
Toronto’s next game is at home against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday. Florida plays at Ottawa against the streaking Senators the same day.
“This is pretty much what happened to us last year,” Paul Maurice, the Panthers coach, said several hours before the puck dropped. “I think we went 2-7-1 over the last 10 and we lost to Montreal and Toronto back to back and we survived it
“Every year the team is different and you have to go through certain adversity and that’s where your game is built.”
This is the ninth straight year that Toronto has reached the playoffs but it has advanced past the first round just once. The last time they reached the postseason nine straight years was in 1966-67, the year they won their last Stanley Cup.
The Panthers had won two previous meetings between them during the 2024-25 campaign.
“This is definitely a big one,” Bobby McMann, a Maple Leafs forward, said earlier in the day. “It might go a long way to determine where we land in the standings.”
The team’s top players came up big against Florida, Tavares with a goal, Marner with a goal and an assist and Knies with one of each. Auston Matthews and Nylander each had assists.
“Those guys are going to be our horses and have to lead,” Stolarz said. “That’s the key.”
Berube, who is in his first year behind Toronto’s bench, was left talking about Tavares.
“As a coach you love a player like that,” Berube said. “He’s a real professional and does everything right. It’s almost like having another coach around.”
There are just two weeks left in the regular season.
“To coach here is a real thrill and an opportunity for me,” Berube, who won the Stanley Cup in 2019 as the coach of the St. Louis Blues, said. “It has been great. It’s hard to make the playoffs. It’s a tough league, but the guys have played really well.”