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The Toronto Maple Leafs are tied 2-2 with the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers as Game 5 is underway.
Follow the latest updates, insights and analysis from The Athletic's team of NHL experts below.
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Maple Leafs vs. Panthers has turned into a battle of both bodies and minds
P1 2:56 – Panthers 1, Maple Leafs 0
The Maple Leafs just aren't spending a ton of time in the offensive zone. Florida's defense is showing why it's one of the best in the NHL.
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P1 5:22 – Panthers 1, Maple Leafs 0
Aaron Ekblad gets the ice breaker. Joseph Woll makes some nice saves, is under duress but the Panthers are just winning the loose puck battles.
Ekblad makes this a 1-0 game for the Panthers.
P1 6:29 – Panthers 0, Maple Leafs 0
What a chance for Simon Benoit. David Kampf makes a great centering pass but Benoit completely misses the net on his shot.
The best way to describe this start for the Leafs would be tight. Not many confident puck touches. Not nearly enough puck battles won. Shots are 8-2 for the Panthers through 11 minutes.
P1 9:00 – Panthers 0, Maple Leafs 0
Coming out of the timeout, Joseph Woll makes another solid save. The Leafs netminder is off to a great start.
Brad Marchand and Scott Laughton are jostling back and forth.
P1 9:19 – Panthers 0, Maple Leafs 0
Take a breather, hockey fans. Under 10 minutes left in the period, it's still 0-0 in Game 5. Some chances on either end but no icebreaking goal just yet.
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P1 11:15 – Panthers 0, Maple Leafs 0
William Nylander with a breakaway opportunity. But Sergei Bobrovsky shuts the door.
Wow what a chance for Toronto!
P1 11:45 – Panthers 0, Maple Leafs 0
A couple of chances in the attacking zone for the Florida Panthers. You can see that Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Bennett are trying to go high on Joseph Woll.
Still 0-0.
P1 13:02 – Panthers 0, Maple Leafs 0
An Aaron Ekblad shot from the point is deflected out of play. At the first TV timeout, it's 0-0. A tight start to Game 5 as expected.
P1 14:17 – Panthers 0, Maple Leafs 0
Max Domi registers the first on shot goal for the Leafs that's deflected with the pad by Sergei Bobrovsky.
P1 15:19 – Panthers 0, Maple Leafs 0
A Matthew Knies check behind Sergei Bobrovsky on Niko Mikkola draws some cheers from the Scotiabank Arena crowd. Still no shots on goal for either team through five minutes of this first period.
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P1 18:00 – Panthers 0, Maple Leafs 0
One minute into Game 5 and no goals scored. The Panthers have twice given up a goal in the first minute during this series.
P1 20:00 – Panthers 0, Maple Leafs 0
Game 5 is underway from Scotiabank Arena.
The players skate onto the ice inside an electric Scotiabank Arena. The national anthems will play then it's puck drop.
Not long now until Game 5. Series tied at two. Huge legacy game for this era of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Enjoy hockey fans!
Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner staying together for the Leafs in Game 5.
Projected forward combinations:
Knies — Matthews — Marner
Pacioretty — Tavares — Nylander
McMann — Domi — Robertson
Laughton — Kämpf — Lorentz
David Kämpf will be playing for the first time since April 2.
Kämpf missed the last seven games of the regular season with an injury and was a healthy scratch in the first 10 games of the playoffs.
He’s known, for whatever it’s worth, for being one of the fitter Leafs.
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Of note with Nick Robertson drawing back into the Leafs lineup for Game 5: He scored in three different games immediately after being scratched during the regular season.
A McMann-Domi-Robertson line outscored opponents 10-7 at evens.
Florida Panthers head coach Paul Maurice offered his take on playoff momentum after his team handily won Game 4 on Sunday night, shutting down the Toronto Maple Leafs 2-0 in suffocating fashion.
His view? It simply doesn’t exist — and he doesn’t expect it to affect what will be the Panthers’ 55th playoff game in the last three years in Game 5 on Wednesday in Toronto.
“We are mindful that it is one game,” Maurice said. “I don’t believe in momentum and trends. The puck will drop in the next game, and we will have to fight hard to get back to what was a pretty well-played game by our team.”
The Panthers have pretty much seen and overcome it all in going to two consecutive Finals. The Leafs, meanwhile, have mostly experienced postseason misery, including the fact that the franchise hasn’t won a series that was tied 2-2 since Auston Matthews was 6 years old.
If you want positives, history is still on the Leafs’ side here. A team that started a best-of-seven series at home and won the first two games and lost the next two has won the series 63 percent of the time in the NHL. They’ve also won Game 5, at home, 72 percent of the time.
Toronto was the better team in Game 1, too, and Game 2 and 3 were basically coin flips. On balance, this series has been very close. The biggest reason there are those who doubt the Leafs can pull this off is that they simply haven’t been able to do something like this in recent memory.
Even if, like Maurice, you believe momentum doesn’t matter and, like many, the historical record doesn’t matter, it’s a harder sell to believe the perpetual failings of the Leafs’ best players aren’t going to be a factor here.
We know by now that the core group on this roster entered this postseason needing to deliver more than they ever have before. Getting to 2-2 in Round 2 isn’t it. What comes next in what’s now a best-of-three will determine whether all of those proclamations that “This team is different!” are actually remembered as anything more than narrative building.
To be different, they have to do something different. They have to win two of the next three games.
GO FURTHER
The Maple Leafs need to bring their best in Game 5 to fend off skeptics
Nick Robertson and David Kampf are in for the Maple Leafs tonight. Pontus Holmberg and Calle Jarnkrok are out.
