We get Florida Wednesday, a day after the Panthers play in Montreal. Panthers could fall out of the race for first if they lose both games.
Florida has already checked out. Like I said a couple of days ago, the Panthers will tread water around .500 the rest of the regular season. They will end up 5 or 6 points behind the Leafs, and my guess is they likely finish behind Tampa as well.
Thinking you could be right about the Panthers. Missing Tkachuk and Ekblad might be catching up to them. Will be interesting to see if Tampa can keep up their level of play. Not many could have seen them finishing first going into the season. Finishing first in the Atlantic, drawing and losing to the WC1 team is the second last excuse I can think of for this core. The last would be to draw and lose to WC2.
I'm sticking with my original opinion that we won't see Tkachuk back until September, other than as a cameo in an elimination game where he plays a handful of minutes. I suspect that he ended up with a pretty significant muscle tear.
Interesting. I just saw that, as well. I've said that if he comes back healthy, that makes for a different Florida team. He stirs that drink.
Tampa's biggest problem is road games. I have no idea why there is such a massive discrepancy in their play at home relative to the road, but they definitely have the ability to win 6 of their remaining 9 games. Even if they do that, however, the Leafs would only need to go .500ish to stay in front of Tampa.
The 3 point cushion on Tampa should be enough for the Leafs to stay ahead of them. I don't think florida will be an issue at all. I expect they will continue to struggle the rest of the season, including losing to the Leafs on Wednesday. If you watched the Montreal/Florida game yesterday, you can see that Florida has mentally checked out.
The one thing that may work against Tampa is that they have more road games than home games remaining. They are a very mediocre road team but elite at home.
Tampa have a game in hand. Win that game and the game head to head and they make up those 3 points and more.
Or they lose the game in hand. Florida has a game in hand as well, but I don't think that will mean much.
Everyone goes through tough schedules and back to backs, I'm sure Florida probably had multiple earlier on in the year. It is what it is, sounds like a lame excuse if we lose the division lead.
It's the team themselves that dictate what the schedule looks like. The Leafs always have arena availability issues, so I am sure that forces many of the back to back scenarios.
I don't think we'll see Tkachuk until the playoffs; they'd have cap problems if they tried to bring him back now. Expect him game 1.
No chance he comes back before the playoffs if he only skated on his own for the first time today anyway.
