SUNRISE — The Florida Panthers failed to close out a second-round series sweep of the Toronto Maple Leafs, falling 2-1 to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday night.
After a lethargic offensive showing throughout the game, a power play goal from William Nylander assisted off a bounce off the referee’s leg early in the second period was enough to do the Panthers in.
Toronto appeared to be offside on the play, but Florida coach Paul Maurice did not challenge the play.
The Maple Leafs started back-up goaltender Joseph Woll with starter Ilya Sasmonov out with an injury he sustained early in the second period of Game 3. But the moment did not seem too big for the 24-year-old rookie, who stopped 24 of 25 shots to force a Game 5 in Toronto on Friday night with the Panthers leading the series, 3-1.“No matter who is in there, you try and make it as difficult as possible,” Sam Reinhart said. “You have to take his eyes away. I think it’s pretty self explanatory, when a goalie sees some shots, he is going to make some shots. We’re going to learn from it.”
Florida generated seven shots in the first period despite dominating puck possession, leaving the door wide open for Toronto to jump ahead in the second period. All it took was a high-sticking penalty from Eetu Luostarinen early in the second and Toronto was able to run away with the game.
Nylander’s goal 3:28 into the second period gave the Maple Leafs all the momentum and they kept it going into the third period. Mitch Marner finally capitalized on that momentum with a long shot from the point with 9:57 to go.
Reinhart brought the Panthers back within a goal two minutes later by poking in a rebound on the power play. But it was not enough.“We lost a game today, that happens in the playoffs,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “We get to play the next one, we’re all good with that. It wasn’t so fabulous of a win that they’re not going to let us play the next one.”
Here are takeaways from Game 4.
Panthers overthinking it in the offensive zone
Time after time Wednesday night, the Panthers passed up a good opportunity to shoot and instead turned the puck over several times trying to continue the cycle game. Good looks from the face-off circle turned into back passes that exited the offensive zone more often than not.
A lot of times, it created chances the other way and killed any momentum Florida had.
Everything said about their 5-on-5 play could be said about their power play as well. They seemed content to cycle the puck around at a speed the Maple Leafs were able to read easily while not moving their feet quickly enough to create anything dangerous.“I think we were a little loose in the neutral zone,” Reinhart said. “We couldn’t quite establish a forecheck enough. I think we did early on but we got a little bit away from that so we’ll clean that up, head to Toronto and look to rebound there.”
Maple Leafs ‘Core Four’ has arrived
After getting shut down for the first three games of the series, the Maple Leafs’ top guns have finally made an impact. Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and John Tavares all were without goals in the first period — but two of them scored on Wednesday night.
It was Nylander who started the scoring with his freebie from the slot and Marner who put the insurance marker on the board to push Toronto ahead.
Florida’s stars in Game 4? Nada. And some eyes have to be shifted to Matthew Tkachuk, who has not scored a single goal in this series after scoring five in Round 1 against Boston.
Coming into Wednesday night, Sergei Bobrovsky was 6-0-0 with a .921/2.71 since Game 5 of the first round. While he took his first loss since the Panthers started their historic comeback against the Boston Bruins, he certainly was not the reason for it.
Bobrovsky stopped 23 of 25 of the shots he faced — marking the fourth-straight game he allowed two or fewer goals — and he made some huge saves. Notably, he stopped John Tavares on a breakaway with 22 seasons left in the second period to keep Florida in it going into the third.
The stability he has provided has been key throughout the playoff run and his play alleviates the Panthers’ concern heading into Game 5 in Toronto.
“I would have complete faith in Sergei even if he hadn’t,” Maurice said. “He has great rebound ability. He’s got great confidence. Our goalie is good.”
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Toronto Maple Leafs defeat Florida Panthers 2-1 in Sunrise
