When the Toronto Maple Leafs visit the Florida Panthers on Saturday neither team will be entering the game in a particularly good mood.The Leafs were routed 4-1 on Thursday by the host Tampa Bay Lightning Adidas Marian Hossa Jersey , and the Panthers were thrashed that same night 5-1 by the host Minnesota Wild.The Panthers (11-13-6) seemed particularly upset with their performance on Thursday as well as their overall play this season.Article continues below ...“We were a few mistakes from being in the game,” said Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad, whose team is in last place in the Atlantic Division with 28 points. “I don’t know what needs to change. But we will figure it out at some point — we need to.”Panthers coach Bob Boughner called out his best player, Aleksander Barkov, who centers Florida’s top line and is the team captain.“I thought Barkov’s line looked slow all game,” Boughner said. “They looked like they had heavy legs. Sometimes you want them to play through it and figure it out — but they never did.”Meanwhile, the Leafs, who are 1-2-0 on this road trip, seemed more frustrated than disappointed by their play on Thursday. They were stymied by Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy — who made 48 saves — but they were pleased with their play overall.The Leafs (21-10-1) went 0-for-6 on the power play, for example, despite creating some good chances.“Close doesn’t cut it in this league,” said Leafs center John Tavares, whose team is second in the Atlantic Division with 43 points. “We did a lot of good things, but we have to find a way to put more than one puck into the back of the net.”Perhaps the Leafs will get a lift on Saturday when left winger Zach Hyman is expected to return to face the Panthers after he served a two-game NHL suspension for his hit on Boston Bruins defenseman Charles McAvoy.“The play is out there (on video) Adidas Chris Wagner Jersey , and everybody can interpret it the way they want,” Hyman told The Toronto Sun. “It’s the first time I’ve gone through that (league suspension). Hopefully, I never have to go through it again.“I play hard. I play the way I play. I’m doing my job. … I’m just getting ready for Saturday.”The Panthers, after losing with backup goalie James Reimer on Thursday, are expected to go back to starter Roberto Luongo on Saturday. Reimer is 5-7-3 with a 3.47 goals-against average (GAA) and an .889 save percentage. Luongo is 5-5-1 with a 3.04 GAA and a .904 save percentage. Toronto will likely go with starting goalie Frederik Andersen (17-9-0, 2.50 GAA, .925 save percentage). The backup goalie is Garret Sparks (4-1-1, 2.84 GAA, .913 save percentage).Tavares leads the Leafs with 19 goals and is second with 33 points. Right winger Mitch Marner leads Toronto with 35 assists and with 41 points. Center Auston Matthews has 16 goals and 11 assists in just 18 games and leads Toronto with six power-play scores.Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly leads the power play in assists with 11 and is the team’s third-leading scorer overall with 33 points. Toronto’s top defensive defenseman is Nikita Zaitsev, who has a team-high 73 blocks and is second on the team with 53 hits.For the Panthers, winger Jonathan Huberdeau leads the team in assists and points 36. Winger Mike Hoffman leads Florida with 15 goals.Florida’s power-play quarterback is Keith Yandle, who leads the team with 15 power-play assists. He has 28 points, tops among Panthers defensemen. John Tavares didn’t just follow his heart home to Toronto.In his head, he envisioned the Maple Leafs as a perennial contender.“I came here believing that we can win a Stanley Cup year in Adidas Joakim Nordstrom Jersey , year out,” Tavares said.In Year One of the Tavares era with young stars Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner riding shotgun, the Maple Leafs are expected to make the playoffs and go on a run next spring. And even after the Winnipeg Jets reached the Western Conference finals, Toronto appears to have the best chance to end Canada’s Stanley Cup drought that dates back a quarter-century to 1993.“The big picture is obviously to always win the Stanley Cup and to not take any year for granted and always to believe every year, especially with the team we have that that’s where we want to get to,” Tavares said. “First and foremost you’ve got to take the small steps and look at the small goals, the small building blocks to get there. I think you’ve got to enjoy that process, enjoy that journey.”Toronto has 13 championships but none since 1967, when the NHL was a six-team league. Signing Tavares to a $77 million, seven-year contract has raised optimism the drought will end soon — another big move following the hiring of coach Mike Babcock in 2015 and picking Matthews first overall in 2016.“You add him, and we have a good core,” Matthews said. “We want to definitely keep that core together obviously because we want to see ourselves in a position to win every year for the next 10 years.”To get there, the Maple Leafs have to get through a competitive Eastern Conference that includes the defending champion Capitals, back-to-back 2016 and 2017 champion Penguins and the well-established Lightning and Bruins. The Leafs are coming off back-to-back first-round exits and hope to get reliable goaltending from Frederik Andersen and solid defense to avoid a similar result.SOARING JETSThe path to the Cup Final isn’t any easier for Winnipeg Timothy Liljegren Jersey Womens , which was one of the final two teams alive in the West last season before losing to Vegas. The Jets lost deadline pickup Paul Stastny in free agency but otherwise bring back the same group and the same big expectations to play games into June.“We’re really close,” center Mark Scheifele said. “We have a bunch of young guys that are still coming into their own, that are still learning about the league. That run that we had last year is so crucial in terms of experience that you were able to gain that experience, gain that hunger for what could be coming.”Scheifele, captain Blake Wheeler, center Bryan Little, winger Nikolai Ehlers and goaltender Connor Hellebuyck are all signed long term, and Finnish phenom Patrik Laine is coming off a 43-goal season. Winnipeg will again have to deal with Central Division-rival Nashville but is as well positioned as anyone to come out of the West.FLAMING INMissing the playoffs brought changes in Calgary. The Flames fired coach Glen Gulutzan and replaced him with Bill Peters, traded Dougie Hamilton and Micheal Ferland to Carolina for Noah Hanifin and Elias Lindholm, and signed James Neal.“I think Noah is just scratching the surface,” general manager Brad Treliving said. “We’ve got some guys on the blue line who can produce. We also want guys who want to be in Calgary. … Elias and Noah, they’re excited to get out there.”Lindholm and Hanifin should be excited to join a team with forwards Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan and defensemen Mark Giordano and T.J. Brodie. The Flames could be scary good this season in a Pacific Division that got weaker with a long-term injury to Anaheim’s Corey Perry.WELL-OILED MCDAVIDConnor McDavid led the NHL with 108 points last season and was voted the most outstanding player by his peers. His Edmonton Oilers finished 17 points out of the final playoff spot in the West. That doesn’t compute except Edmonton’s goaltenders had the fifth-worst save percentage in the league and the rest of the Oilers couldn’t keep up with McDavid’s production. He’d like to score more goals this season but learned from last year that it’s not about him.“It doesn’t matter what one player does at all,” McDavid said. “It’s all about the team, and if one guy’s having success Antoine Roussel Jersey Womens , it doesn’t mean that the team’s having success and you’ve got to find a way to win games and that’s not one guy.”One guy who needs to be better is goalie Cam Talbot. And it wouldn’t hurt if Edmonton’s defensemen all took a step up.NO MAN’S LANDToronto, Winnipeg and Calgary appear to be in good shape for years to come and the Oilers have McDavid to build around. The rest of Canada’s teams are in trouble.The Ottawa Senators traded two-time Norris Trophy winning defenseman Erik Karlsson and winger Mike Hoffman and can’t even look forward to a silver lining if they bottom out: the Colorado Avalanche own their first-round pick.“We’re looking to have a competitive, good hockey team this year and we’re aiming to be the best we can be and we can be a very good team with the roster we have,” said center Matt Duchene, who was acquired in the trade that cost the Senators that 2019 first-round pick.Ottawa is expected to be among the worst teams in the NHL, but at least that’s clarity compared to the Montreal Canadiens and Vancouver Canucks. Both appear stuck between rebuilding and trying to stay afloat.“Obviously it’s in transition with Hank and Danny (Sedin) being gone and having that void to fill,” Vancouver forward Bo Horvat said. “We know where we’re at as a team, we know what we have to do and we know that we got young guys coming up that are going to have to try to prove themselves as everyday NHLers.”Montreal has a potential star in third overall pick Jesperi Kotkaniemi and can always dream big because of goaltender Carey Price.“He’s the best goalie in the world,” forward Max Domi said. “It’s going to be awesome to have him back there.”