Less than 11 months after Florida ended Toronto’s season in Game 7, the Panthers and Maple Leafs meet again Saturday night at Scotiabank Arena with something far less glamorous on the line: draft position. Entering Game 80, the teams had identical.494 points percentages and were part of a three-way tie with the Seattle Kraken for fifth worst in the overall standings.
The result matters because the loser is likely to finish in a better spot heading into the May 5 draft lottery. Toronto can keep its first-round pick in June only if it lands inside the top five; if it does not, the selection goes to the Boston Bruins to complete the Brandon Carlo trade. If the Leafs pick up points over their remaining three games, their only path to a top-five pick is to win one of the lottery drawings for the No. 1 or No. 2 selection, a swing that would likely leave their odds somewhere between 1-in-13 and 1-in-20 depending on where they finish. If Toronto holds its current place, it would still have a route back into the top five if the teams below it win those lottery drawings with better odds.
The game carries the residue of last spring, when Florida beat Toronto in Game 7 with a berth in the Eastern Conference Final on the line. That was the last time the matchup felt like a playoff event. Now both clubs are staring at the bottom of the table instead of the top, a jarring turn for teams that opened the spring as entirely different stories.
Toronto arrives after a 5-3 loss on Long Island on Thursday night, a game in which it was outshot 44-16. The Maple Leafs have kept dressing a veteran-heavy lineup since being officially eliminated from playoff contention, calling up a cadre of youngsters from the American Hockey League this week only when injuries made it necessary. Florida, by contrast, was down eight regulars because of injuries, with Aleksander Barkov, Brad Marchand, Sam Reinhart, Matthew Tkachuk, Anton Lundell, Evan Rodrigues, Aaron Ekblad and Dmitry Kulikov all sidelined. The Panthers have won three of their last 10 games, but they still arrive as a club that has made three straight trips to the Stanley Cup Final.
That is the oddity at the heart of Saturday’s meeting: one team is carrying the longest playoff streak in the league, the other is living with the memory of a 6-1 exit in the same building, and both are now focused on lottery odds. For Toronto, the math is simple and unforgiving. Every point, every result and every place in the standings can change whether this June brings a first-round pick or sends it to Boston.
