The Toronto Maple Leafs will look to stretch their series lead to two games when they host the Florida Panthers for Game 2 Wednesday evening at Scotiabank Arena.

Despite earning a well-deserved win in the series opener on Monday, the Leafs are larger underdogs in Game 2 than they were in Game 1, as they will be forced to pivot to Joseph Woll in goal, while Aaron Ekblad will return to play, having completed his two-game suspension.

I’ll detail the relevant game notes and outline my favourite betting angles below.

The Panthers were on their heels early in Game 1, after William Nylander was able to beat Sergei Bobrovsky on the Leafs’ first shot of the game. Nylander then doubled down after an uncharacteristic breakdown by the Panthers defensively left the Leafs’ leading goalscorer with all day in the slot.

Throughout the entirety of the game, the Leafs held a 3.38 to 2.51 edge in expected goal share and did not offer as many true defensive collapses as the Panthers did. Florida was able to stir things up physically but it played a looser game defensively than we have become accustomed to seeing during Paul Maurice’s tenure as head coach.

While Ekblad has had somewhat of a down year overall, his return will boost the upside of a defense corps that was exposed to some extent in the series opener. Ekblad skated on the top pairing alongside Gustav Forsling, dropping Seth Jones down to the second pair alongside Niko Mikkola.

The Panthers lost Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals last year versus the Boston Bruins and were able to respond with a 6-1 victory in Game 2. There will surely be no panic from Maurice’s group after going down 1-0, and it’s no surprise to hear him preaching the need to author a sharper defensive performance in tonight’s matchup.

Bobrovsky now holds a -0.1 GSAx rating this postseason with an .887 save percentage. By no means was he the team’s greatest problem in Game 1, as only one of the goals against arguably should’ve been stopped, and his pedigree suggests allowing four goals against in Game 1 may not be anything worth reading too much into.

While it would be preferable to have seen the Leafs play a slightly tighter third period overall, their Game 1 performance was quite strong and should instill confidence that they can generate offense versus a Panthers side that was dominant defensively during their Stanley Cup run last season.

Toronto’s top two offensive lines were entirely dominant in Game 1 and deserve plenty of credit, especially as when the Leafs lose, they are always the ones wearing all the blame.

All three members of Toronto’s top line of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and Matthew Knies finished with +2 ratings, and the trio held a 62% expected goal share at even strength, despite spending plenty of time against Aleksander Barkov’s line. They combined for three points where it counts, including Matthew Knies’ game-winning goal.

The team’s second line of William Nylander, John Tavares and Max Pacioretty was also highly effective, combining for five points and combining for a +7 rating.

The Leafs’ bottom two units did not fare overly well in Game 1, as has generally been the case throughout this postseason. It’s a well covered point that the Leafs’ top offensive stars need to be better in the playoffs for the team to finally find success, but as Michael Clifford notes in this tweet, recent Cup winners all had bottom sixes that played to positive goal differentials during their respective championship runs.

The Panthers are certainly capable of authoring a better performance than we saw in Game 1, but considering the betting prices, my lean would still be with the Leafs in terms of a side.

Toronto has finally enjoyed seeing all of its ultra-talented stars play at an elite level this postseason, and it could author another strong offensive performance in this matchup as a result. The top two lines generated plenty of chances at even strength in Game 1, but it also wouldn’t be surprising to see the top power play unit chip in some offense after failing to break through in the series opener.

The Leafs have been solid defensively this postseason, but far from entirely dominant. Woll has the potential to play at the level we saw from Stolarz at his best, but it could be a difficult game to be thrust into after making somewhat of a shaky return to action on Monday.

At -118 I see value backing this game to feature over 5.5 goals, as this looks to be a good spot to expect both offences to contribute to the low total.