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If the Florida Panthers don’t look particularly homesick during Monday night’s Game 1 at Scotiabank Arena, it’s worth remembering they’re fresh off going 3-for-3 in road games in their first-round series win against archrival Tampa Bay. Going back to the beginning of Florida’s first of two straight runs to the Stanley Cup final in 2023, and including last year’s run to lifting the chalice, the Panthers have gone 18-8 on the road in the post-season, the best such record in the league over that span.

The Leafs, meanwhile, are 4-8 at Scotiabank Arena during the same stretch. Which barely qualifies as a cold streak for a team that’s had a difficult time turning Bay Street into Yay Street in the playoffs. pc28����is 12-20 at home during the post-season in the Shanaplan era.

So the Leafs earned home ice. It’s up to them to finally turn it into an advantage.

“We’re a prepared group. We’re ready to go,” captain Auston Matthews said. “We know the challenge that lies ahead.”

If the Leafs spent the last few days of the Ottawa series confronting their own historic demons, the skilled and deep Panthers are here-and-now devils. They’re the most penalized team in the league and the NHL leader in hits, complete with a cadre of veteran agitators — Brad Marchand, Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Bennett — with veritable PhDs in the art and science of pot stirring.

The Leafs are certainly talking an excellent game in the face of that threat. They’ve paid homage to the Panthers’ best players. They’ve acknowledged Florida’s status as the preeminent team in the sport. They’ve played the underdog, despite occupying the upper seed.

“They’re obviously king of the castle,” Leafs goaltender Anthony Stolarz said of the defending champion Panthers.

The trick now is to make sure the Panthers don’t spend Games 1 and 2 crowning themselves the new kings of Toronto’s rink. The last time pc28����and Florida met in the post-season, in 2023, the Panthers arrived for Game 1 in pc28����and returned to the Sunshine State with a 2-0 series lead en route to a five-game drubbing. It’s hard to imagine this series will go deep if that bit of early-series history repeats.

Much has changed since 2023, of course. The Leafs have a revamped defensive corps, more promising goaltending and a new playing style under Berube. What hasn’t changed is Toronto’s penchant for less-than-inspiring performances in front of their famously high-paying home audience. The Leafs’ most recent work at their own rink was a 4-0 loss to the Senators in Game 5 of the first round that drew boos. The Leafs, at least, opened the Ottawa series with two home wins.

The Panthers, mind you, are way better. They faced the highest-scoring team in the league in the first round and limited them to five goals in three home games. How did they make the Lightning’s barn feel like their own?

Florida head coach Paul Maurice spent part of the weekend talking about how the road can be a haven for a playoff team. For one, it’s his experience that a travelling group is often better united in a sole focus away from the distractions of home.

For another: “We’ve never been a heavy (line-matching) team … What we do at home is pretty darn close to what we do on the road, so there’s not much change for us.”

That, folks, is called a humble brag. Berube sounded envious in the lead-up to Monday.

“Paul matches, and (Aleksander) Barkov’s their guy (as No. 1 centreman),” Berube said. “But they have the luxury of having the (Anton) Lundell line (as their third line). Lundell’s an exceptional two-way centreman in the National Hockey League. So Paul’s not going to be worried or shy to get him out against our guys”

Berube said he’ll take the opportunity to use the last change to optimize Toronto’s matchups. But the nature of Florida’s depth means avoiding one tough head-to-head often begets another.

“There’s always times you can get people away from their so-called shutdown people. But at the same time, you’re going to have to play against ’em,” Berube said. “You’ve got to just keep grinding and work your way through it and wait for your opportunities and stay patient.”

In other words, the value of matching a line doesn’t compare to, say, the value of winning a night’s share of puck battles. Playoff hockey is not chess, but it does prize checkers. Matching lines is fine but, as Berube said on the weekend, pointing to a likely more impactful tack, “We’ve got to match their physicality.

“They forecheck hard and they’re physical and they’re in your face the whole game … We’re a physical team, too. We’ve got to go out and be physical ourselves. We’ve got to initiate as much as possible.”