In Toronto, the Panthers Carter Verhaeghe scored with less than three minutes left in the middle frame to snap a 2-2 tie with the Maple Leafs on Tuesday night.
The Panthers held that 3-2 lead into the third when Brandon Montour scored at 12:24 to them a little breathing room and a 4-2 final in Game of their second round series.
Game 2 is set for Thursday in Toronto.
“(Anthony) Duclair made a great play to me, and I think it’s huge, anytime you get a goal at the end of the period, instead of going in tied, you go in up a goal,” Verhaeghe said. “It settled us down after the period, and you could take a deep breath.”
Matthew Tkachuk had three assists in the win.
“He’s a force, he’s a great player,” Panthers forward Sam Bennett said of Tkachuk. “He steps up in big games and he’s physical. He make plays, he scores goals and he’s one of the rarest players in the NHL I would say, so I’m glad he’s on our team.”
Sergei Bobrovsky made 34 saves in the Panthers win.
“My guys helped me a lot, they did great box outs and cleaned out the front of the net,” Bobrovsky said. “The PK was dialed. Lots of good blocked shots, lots of good sticks.”
Florida took a 2-0 lead in the game before the Maple Leafs rallied for two goals in the middle frame to tie it, 2-2.
“I thought we made mistakes, now credit to Florida because of how they played, they force you to make mistakes, but I thought we made some mistakes here tonight that we didn’t necessarily make in the last series,” Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said.
Matthew Knies scored at 8:09, just 11 seconds after the Panthers had taken the 2-0 lead to trim the deficit to 2-1 for the Leafs.
“We give up a breakaway to really the one guy we definitely don’t want to give a breakaway to,” Keefe said of Verhaeghe’s goal . “We don’t want to give it to anybody, but we certainly don’t want to give it to that guy. It’s a big part of our plan going in is how he can jump into those holes, and that’s how he scores a lot of his goals getting in behind defense. We cannot make that mistake when it’s 2-2 at the end of a period. That’s a tough one.”
Toronto’s Michael Bunting scored 14:51 to tie the game.
“We’re trying to score on (the power plays),” Maple Leafs forward Mitchell Marner said. “We’re trying to make plays. We did pretty well getting things around the net. We’ve just got to do a better job of getting second opportunities.”
Nick Cousins opened the scoring midway through the first stanza for a 1-0 lead to the Panthers.
“I thought we were good tonight, I didn’t think we were great,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “They had a good push back halfway through the game. We kind of got a little bit away from what we are good at, and they got closer to what they’re really, really good at. That will be the battle of this series.”
“You can expect a certain amount of forecheck and physicality from us and a certain amount of speed and skill from them and one team will feed the other. The team that brings the least amount of food to the game wins.”
Bennett pushed the advantage to 2-0 just ahead of the Maple Leafs rally in the second period.
“We’re playing confident right now,” Bennett said. “We’ve really bought in to what we need to do to win, and I think there’s still more our team can bring. We didn’t have a great full 60-minute game there so I think there’s a little more we can do, clean up a couple things but our team is playing with some good confidence right now.”
Ilya Samsonov made 24 saves in the Toronto loss.
“Give them credit, they played well,” Toronto defenseman Luke Schenn said. “But a lot of the goals that were scored were self-inflicted. They’re a great team, they played well tonight, give them credit. But in saying, that we think, I think, still have a lot more to give.”
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