The Florida Panthers showed why they’re the defending Stanley Cup champions on Sunday night with their best performance of their Eastern Conference Second Round series against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Panthers overcame a tremendous effort by Toronto goaltender Joseph Woll and evened the best-of-7 series at two wins each with a 2-0 victory in Game 4 at Amerant Bank Arena. Florida played a complete team game, dominating play for the vast majority of the night. The Panthers outshot the Maple Leafs 15-4 in the first period and 37-23 for the game. Sergei Bobrovsky was perfect at the other end of the ice, earning his fifth career playoff shutout and second this year.
Woll was the only reason the Leafs had a chance to win. Florida got six power plays and scored just once – Matthew Tkachuk’s perfect seam pass set up Carter Verhaeghe’s goal at 15:45 of the first period on the Panthers’ fourth man advantage in less than 15 minutes.
Sam Bennett’s clincher at 12:09 of the third period came after a turnover at the Florida blue line. He came in alone, deked Woll to the ice, cut around him and scored into a half-empty net.
The Panthers’ second straight win at home after losing the first two games in Toronto sends the series back to Scotiabank Arena for Game 5 on Wednesday all even. The defending champs have the momentum in the series after two straight wins, but they still have to win a game in Toronto to keep their hopes of a repeat alive.
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3 takeaways after Panthers even series with 2-0 win over Maple Leafs
1. “Bob” does the job
Bobrovsky wasn’t tested nearly as much as Woll. But after allowing 13 goals in the first three games of the series, he was perfect on Sunday, coming up with big saves when they were needed. “Bob” won the first true goaltending battle of the series.
He was especially good in the third period, when the Leafs began generating more pressure after coach Craig Berube shuffled his lines. Matt Knies had two great chances, with Bobrovsky stopping him on a backhander from close range less than four minutes in and forcing him to miss the net on a shorthanded breakaway. Morgan Rielly had a great chance in the final 90 seconds but Bobrovsky beat him.
Bobrovsky is the biggest reason Florida has won 25 consecutive playoff games, going back to May 5, 2022, when leading after two periods. That matches the Edmonton Oilers for the most wins in the NHL over that span.
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2. Woll excels … but doesn’t win
Woll was named the game’s Third Star after a brilliant 35-save performance. He was the only reason that the game ended 2-0 instead of 6-0 or 7-0.
The Panthers took 21 of the game’s first 26 shots on net, controlling play for long stretches and keeping all the action in front of Woll. He held firm, keeping Toronto in the game. Woll made 14 saves in the first period, then followed that with an even better performance in the second.
Woll gave the Leafs the kind of goaltending they needed to win – it was arguably the best performance of his NHL career. Unfortunately for the Leafs, his teammates didn’t match his level of play.
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3. Maple Leafs have to regroup
Toronto looked like it had the series in hand after taking a 2-0 lead in Game 3, only to lose 5-4 in overtime. The Leafs paid the price for a slow start on Sunday and ended up chasing the game for the final 44-plus minutes.
The best thing for the Maple Leafs might be that they have two days off before hosting Game 5 on Wednesday. That will give Berube some time to make adjustments after one of the Leafs’ worst playoff performances in the past few years. They hadn’t been shut out in the postseason since losing 3-0 to the Columbus Blue Jackets in the fifth and final game of the qualifying round in 2020.
For most of the first two periods, the Leafs played their worst hockey of this year’s playoffs. They were late getting to pucks, didn’t win nearly enough battles and generated almost no significant offensive chances.
Toronto perked up a bit after Berube juggled his lines in the final 20 minutes. But it will be interesting to see what moves he makes to get his top players like Auston Matthews, Mitchell Marner and William Nylander going in Game 5 after such a poor effort on Sunday.
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