GameDay 65: Lineups, Betting Odds for Panthers at Maple Leafs

Hard to believe, but here we are at the end of March and the Florida Panthers will be meeting a division rival for the first time when they visit the Toronto Maple Leafs tonight.

Toronto is chasing the Panthers in the Atlantic Division race and probably need to get five out of the six available points in this abbreviated season series to even have a chance to catch them.

Yes, six points.

Due to a quirk in the schedule, Florida will only face Toronto three times in the regular season instead of the usual four.

Toronto failed to not only keep pace with the Panthers on Saturday night but ended up losing ground.

While the Panthers were in Ottawa coming back to beat the Senators 4-3 in a shootout, the Maple Leafs lost to the host Montreal Canadiens.

As it stands as of this morning, the Panthers hold a seven-point lead on Boston, eight on Tampa Bay with Toronto nine points back of first.

And, it looks like Toronto’s arena will be ready to go after it had to be evacuated Saturday night during a Raptors game due to an electrical fire.

That game was continued after the all-clear was given — with no fans in the building.

Back to hockey.

Florida is flying high these days with wins in nine of its past 11 road games — with at least a point in 10 of them.

The past couple have not been pretty, however, with Montreal and Ottawa giving the Panthers fits.

This being Toronto and all, expect the Panthers to be ready to play on Sunday night. Even though they heard about Saturday night’s loss — they are in Canada, after all, so it would be hard to ignore — the Panthers are not going to take a key division rival lightly.

“It is a really good team and it’s a back-to-back,” Jonathan Huberdeau said. “It is our first game against them and we’re excited. It’s going to be a challenge. We just have to be ready, have a good start tomorrow.”

— Looking for a place to watch tonight’s game in Toronto?

Join me at the Inn-Field in Sunrise (Oakland Park just west of Hiatus) for wing specials and more.

Sound on so we can all listen to Goldie, Randy and Jessica…

UP NEXT FOR THE FLORIDA PANTHERS 

FLORIDA PANTHERS AT TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS

• When: Sunday, 7 p.m.
• Where: Scotiabank Arena, Toronto  
• TV/Streaming: Bally Sports Florida
• Radio: WQAM 560-AM/SiriusXM
• Draft Kings odds — Toronto favored: Money Line (-120); Puck line (-1.5, +185); Over/Under 7 (+105/-125)
• Last season: Did not play
  
• All-time regular season series: Toronto leads 44-34-5, 7 ties
• This season — First meeting

PROJECTED FLORIDA PANTHERS LINEUP

23 Carter Verhaeghe // 16 Sasha Barkov // 28 Claude Giroux

11 Jonathan Huberdeau // 9 Sam Bennett // 10 Anthony Duclair

17 Mason Marchment  // 27 Eetu Luostarinen // 13 Sam Reinhart

94 Ryan Lomberg // 55 Noel Acciari // 98 Maxim Mamin

8 Ben Chiarot // 52 MacKenzie Weegar

42 Gus Forsling // 7 Radko Gudas

18 Robert Hagg // 62 Brandon Montour

30 Spencer Knight

72 Sergei Bobrovsky

Scratched: Patric Hornqvist, Petteri Lindbohm, Joe Thornton, Lucas Carlsson

Injured: Markus Nutivaara (LTIR), Jonas Johansson (IR), Anton Lundell (ill), Aaron Ekblad (LTIR)

PROJECTED TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS LINEUP

58 Michael Bunting // 34 Auston Matthews // 16 Mitch Marner

15 Alexander Kerfoot // 91 John Tavares // 88 William Nylander

65 Ilya Mikheyev // 64 David Kampf // 47 Pierre Engvall

11 Colin Blackwell // 19 Jason Spezza // 24 Wayne Simmonds

44 Morgan Rielly // 46 Ilya Lyubushkin

78 T.J. Brodie // 3 Justin Holl

55 Mark Giordano // 37 Timothy Liljegren

35 Petr Mrazek

50 Erik Kallgren

Toronto Maple Leafs lines courtesy DailyFaceoff.com