In Toronto, Nick Cousins was part of a 3-on-2 breakout for the Florida Panthers in extra time on Friday night.
He looked off the Maple Leafs’ defense and dragged the puck into the low slot between the circles and wristed home the game-winner in a 3-2 for the Panthers in Game 5.
“It’s one of those moments where you’ll grow up and tell your kids about,” Cousins said. “My daughter is only 11 months, so it’s something I’ve got to tell her when she grows up. Big goal, big moment for our team. Really special, really special.”
The goal came at 15:32 of the extra session.
“Honestly, I don’t even want to talk about Carolina yet,” Florida forward Matthew Tkachuk said. “We just want to enjoy this one tonight and take a few days and then we will move on to them. It’s a big task, but we deserve to enjoy this one tonight. It was a grind of a series even though it was only five games.”
Sergei Bobrovsky made 51 saves in the Panthers win.
“It’s great. It’s an explosion of the emotions,” Bobrovsky said, of the game-ending goal. “You just let it go because it kind of builds and builds and you have to stay composed. Whatever happened, we had the power play, they had the chances, you keep building, pressure builds. It was definitely great relief.”
The Panthers now move on to face the Carolina Panthers in the Eastern Conference Final.
“I got to watch a bunch of guys that you care about a lot, and I enjoyed the [heck] out of it,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said. “Just to walk into the room after, it’s pure joy in there. … It’s fun to watch guys who work really hard, compete and battle, and by no means was any of this easy.
“That’s a good team we beat. It’s fun to be associated with [our players], they’re fun, they come to the rink, they work their butts off and we laugh.”
Aaron Ekblad struck on the power play at 3:31 of the opening stanza for a 1-0 lead to the Panthers.
“It’s real tough,” Maple Leafs forward Auston Matthews said. “I just look around the room … every guy battles for each other, works for each other. This is as tight of a group that I played on in my seven years, and I think we’ve played with some really great people, some really great teammates, and we’ve had some of the tight groups.
“It stings, obviously, to go out like that and not get an opportunity to get another crack at it with all these guys.”
Carter Verhaeghe hit for a marker at 16:15 of the fist after getting a perfect pass from 
Anthony Duclair at the right circle and a 2-0 lead to the Panthers coming out of the first period.
“We don’t have as much skill as them, we definitely don’t,” Tkachuk said. “I don’t think there’s many teams that do but, come playoff time, it’s not about that. It’s about sticking together, coming through in (big) moments, it’s about timely stuff.”
The Maple Leafs crawled back into the match when Morgan Rielly hit for a goal at 7:50 of the middle frame to trim the deficit to 2-1.
“We lose the series in the first three games,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “Game 4 (a 2-1 win), I thought we played very well. I thought we played well enough to win the game today. But the first three games, we’re in similar positions that we were in Games 4 and 5 but did not handle the situations well and didn’t capitalize on our chances. The margin for error is basically none because of our results in the first three games.”
Toronto tied it, 2-2, at 15:33 of the third period on a strike by William Nylander .
“I saw him there in front of the net,” Bobrovsky said. “I tried [to] stay patient and let him do the first move; he’s an unbelievable player and he had a great shot. It was a great challenge to play against him, against [all] those offensive guys. They created great challenges and great scoring chances. It was a fun challenge.”
Joseph Woll made 41 saves in the Leafs loss.
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