Mitch Marner and his wife, Stephanie, welcomed their first child, a baby boy, on Sunday morning.

"Obviously he's in a good mood," said coach Craig Berube. "He's probably flying high right now. I mean, I remember I had my first child and it's a different feeling for sure. It's one of the best feelings you'll ever have, in my opinion, and I'm sure he's very excited. He'll be excited tomorrow."

Marner missed Sunday's practice to be with his family, but will rejoin the team for Game 1 of their second round playoff series against the Florida Panthers on Monday.

"He needs to get a little skate in in the morning," said Berube. "It will be a lot of good positive things on his mind, which is good."

Marner was second on the Leafs with eight points in the six-game series win over the Ottawa Senators in the first round.

"He was great," said centre John Tavares. "Almost takes your mind away from it a little bit. Wondering when it's going to come, when it's going to happen, but he did a good job of just focusing on playing and worrying about what he could and knowing when the time comes, it'll all work out, which it did."

Tavares and his wife Aryne welcomed their third child, a daughter, during the playoffs two years ago.

"Gives you tremendous perspective and meaning to life and [you] see things really, really differently," said Tavares, who also has two sons. "Anyone becoming a parent, becoming father, it's pretty remarkable. For him, he's probably been real emotional and probably just [soaking] it all in."

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Toronto's top line of Marner, Auston Matthews and Matthew Knies will likely be matched up against Florida's top line, which is led by two-time Selke Trophy winner Aleksander Barkov.

"You gotta fight for every inch," said Matthews. "He's big. He's strong. He's good in the faceoff circle. He's probably the best two-way player, two-way centre in the league, in my opinion."

Barkov is nominated for the Selke Trophy for a fourth time. This year he has company as his linemate Sam Reinhart, who led the team with 39 goals in the regular season, is also nominated for the award, which is given to the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game. It's only the fifth time that teammates have been nominated for the Selke Trophy in the same season.

"They're very good 200-foot players and they have offensive abilities, obviously," said Berube. "Reinhart can score. Barkov does a little bit of everything. It's always a challenge playing against great........

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