In Toronto, William Nylander played the hero for the Maple Leafs on Tuesday night as Toronto rallied back form a 4-2 deficit to the Florida Panthers for a 5-4 win in extra time.
Nylander tied the game, 4-4, early in the third period, and then potted the game-winner in the extra session.
“I had some speed and felt like I could take it wide. I was able to get it to the back post and sneak it by him,” Nylander said.
Matt Murray got the start for Toronto, but got the hook after yielding four goals, and making just four saves..
Ilya Samsonov made 11 saves in the win.
The Maple Leafs improved to 27-11-7.
“I thought Samsonov did an unbelievable job coming in cold like that, made a ton of huge saves for us,” Murray said. “Auston (Matthews) got a huge goal for us at the end of the second there. Willy had a huge night for us to pull out the two points. Unbelievable job by everybody.
“I just have to be better. That’s the bottom line. If I come up with a couple of those, obviously it’s a much different game.”
Florida’s Carter Verhaeghe and Toronto’s Dryden Hunt traded goals for a 1-1 tie in the first period.
Two teams did a rinse and repeat with Anton Lundell pushing the Panthers back into the lead, 2-1, on a shorthanded goal before Alexander Kerfoot tied it up, 2-2 off the power play.
Josh Mahura send the game to the middle frame with the Panthers ahead, 3-2,
At 1:41 of the second, Alexander Barkov extended the lead to 4-2.
“That’s a big time shot by Barkov, but for me, I’m more pulling the goaltender for our team,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “Just needed to change something. You can’t give up four goals on eight shots no matter how you shake it out, but that was really it. You look at the actual goals, I didn’t think any of the goals were too egregious or weak. There was some traffic involved inside each of those goals, but clearly we needed to change something.”
Toronto’s Auston Matthews scored off the power play with three seconds left in the middle frame for a 4-3 score headed to the third.
Florida dropped to 21-20-5.
“We’re working our butts off now,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said. “You may not be able to see it because there was a little fatigue there towards the end of the game, we didn’t have that push or sharpness, but they’re working hard enough to win games. When you do that, your goalie starts making more saves, everybody starts feeling better. Tough loss tonight.”
Sergei Bobrovsky made 32 saves in the Panthers loss.
“We battled as hard as we could,” Barkov said. “We spent a lot of time in our zone on the penalty kills, and they’re going to get their shots and momentum. It’s hard to spend so much time there. … We got to the overtime and it could have gone either way, but they played with the puck the whole overtime, so they got their chance.”
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