Defenseless: Leafs shelled 7-2 by Panthers

It was Nikita Zaitsev falling flat on his back while Colton Sceviour raced down the ice netting a short-handed goal for the Florida Panthers which set the unfortunate tone of what would be the rest of the game for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Sceviour's goal put the Panthers up 2-0 just 11 minutes into Tuesday night's contest. Zaitsev's gaff on the play would be the first of many errors the Toronto Maple Leafs defense would make in the game.

With the Panthers up 3-1 in the 2nd Period, and Frederik Andersen already pulled out of the match, a weak effort by Morgan Reilly to clear the puck out of the zone led to a smooth passing effort by Thomas Vanek and Alexsander Barkov set-up Jonathan Marchessault for his 2nd of the game, and 5th against the Leafs this season. The Leafs at that point in time had dug themselves into a 3-goal deficit down 4-1.

The defensive blunders would continue for the Maple Leafs as a poorly timed line-change by Morgan Reilly saw the Panthers break into the Leafs zone with an odd-man rush, and it would be Reilly Smith's second chance at it that would beat Curtis McElhinney to make it 5-1 for the Panthers.

The Panthers would go on to win this game 7-2, and in a game where Toronto looked completely out of sorts, it is hard to blame just the defense for this lapse in effort.

The Leafs offensively, were able to muster 30-shots in the direction of former Maple Leaf "Optimus Reim" James Reimer, but very few of those shots were much of a threat for Reimer. The best forward line for the Leafs was their fourth line of Soshnikov/Boyle/Martin as they scored the Maple Leafs second goal of the game off of a good forcheck which resulted in Brian Boyle throwing the puck towards the net and Nikita Soshnikov putting away the rebound.

Back to the larger issue however, this was a game that Morgan Reilly and Nikita Zaitsev will hopefully soon forget as it was possibly their worst performances this season.

For the Florida Panthers, they come away with an important win as they keep themselves in the playoff race now sitting 6 points out of the playoffs. The win is also impressive for the Panthers as they now move forward without Top D-man Aaron Ekblad who sustained a concussion in the Panthers game on Saturday night. Florida's offense was also able to get going in this game, something which had been eluding the team as of late. While most of Florida's success was due to the lackluster defensive performance of the Leafs, Florida still managed 7 goals. The Panthers had only managed 19 goals in their past 9 games.

The Toronto Maple Leafs allowed 7 or more goals tonight for the 3rd time this season. Another team the Leafs have allowed 7 goals to this season, are the Tampa Bay Lightning who are next on the docket for the Leafs.

With both the New York Islanders and Tampa Bay Lightning winning Tuesday night, the Maple Leafs now fall behind both clubs and out of the playoffs into 10th place in the Eastern Conference. The Lightning and Islanders both have 77 points, the Maple Leafs stay stagnant with 76 points.

Next Maple Leafs Game

***Thursday, March 16, 2017 at 7:30PM @ Tampa Bay