Boqvist In, Rodrigues Out For Panthers in Game 5 Against Maple Leafs

TORONTO — The Panthers and Maple Leafs will be treating Wednesday’s matchup as the most important game of the year — at least to this point.

When the Panthers left Ontario last week, the Leafs had the series in its palms after going up 2-0 at home.

One week later, Florida returned to Scotiabank Arena in a much better position to when they left. Like Toronto, the Panthers took care of business on home-ice; winning games 3 and 4 to even up the series at 2-2.

”I think the last couple games we’ve played the whole sixty minutes,” Panthers forward Eetu Luostarinen said on Wednesday. “The momentum is crucial in these games.”

The stakes of Wednesday night’s Game 5 in Toronto is very similar to the Panthers’ Eastern Conference Finals series against the New York Rangers last year. Florida tied up that series after winning Game 4 in overtime at home before taking Game 5 at Madison Square Garden in New York.

”This is where we’re supposed to be,” Maurice responded when asked about his sense of the group going into Game 5. “The setup is exactly [like] the Ranger game (Game 5, 2024 ECF). We were down in the series, came back, went into New York.”

He added: “It’s harvesting that excitement about it. That’s kind of how we’re moving around each other today.”

Evan Rodrigues (undisclosed) will not play in Game 5. The Panthers forward did not return to Game 4 after he was hit by Maple Leafs defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson away from the puck 4:51 into the third period.

“He just can’t play today,” Maurice said when asked about Rodrigues’ status. “We’ll list him as day-to-day.”

Jesper Boqvist will draw in for Rodrigues on the first-line alongside Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart.

“It’s a great opportunity, obviously playing with two great players,” Boqvist said after morning skate. “I just got to do what I do, I can’t be someone else, right?”

Boqvist played in seven games this postseason but has been out of the lineup the past two games as a healthy scratch.

“The advantage to having him come in is he can play all three forward positions,” Maurice said of the decision to play Boqvist. “ (It) gives us some options on either Nosek returning to the left wing with Barkov and Reinhart like we did the last 15 minutes of the third [in Game 4]. I can move him over to the right as well, there’s lots of versatility there for us. He’s got some experience.”

Other than Boqvist coming in for Rodrigues the Panthers will be running the same lineup as they did in Game 4.

Puck drop for Game 5 will be Wednesday night at 7 p.m. EST from Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.

Projected Lines Panthers

Boqvist-Barkov-Reinhart

Verhaeghe-Bennett-Tkachuk

Luostarinen-Lundell-Marchand

Greer-Nosek-Gadjovich

Forsling-Ekblad

Mikkola-Jones

Schmidt-Kulikov

Bobrovsky

Vanecek