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The defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers are down 2-1 in the Eastern Conference second round against the Toronto Maple Leafs and look to tie the series on home ice after Brad Marchand's overtime winner in Game 3.
Follow along below for the latest updates, insight and analysis from The Athletic's team of NHL experts on the ground in Florida.
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Tonight William Nylander can become the first Maple Leafs player with at least seven goals through his first 10 games of a postseason since Dave Andreychuk in 1993.
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Morgan Rielly (4-3—7 in nine games played) sits one goal shy of becoming the fourth Maple Leafs defenseman with at least five in a single postseason. He would join Ian Turnbull (six in 1978), Dmitri Mironov (six in 1994) and Bryan McCabe (five in 2002).
With hopes of a rally to keep its chances of a repeat alive, Florida would become the seventh reigning Stanley Cup champion in the NHL’s expansion era (since 1967-68) to overcome a 2-0 series deficit to advance. Three have done so beyond the opening round (TBL: 2022 CF; MTL: 1987 DF; and NYI: 1984 CF).
Brad Marchand, fresh off the overtime winner in Game 3, owns an active five-game point streak (2-5—7 in five games). He can become the fourth player in Panthers history with a run of six games – a list led by Dave Lowry (seven games in 1996).
The remaining schedule for the Maple Leafs and Panthers. Toronto currently leads the series 2-1.
Toronto was up 2-0 in the series and 3-1 in Game 3 and looked like it would cruise to a 3-0 lead. The dominance was on full display.
The Leafs were poised to take a 3-0 series lead against the defending Stanley Cup champions, something that had happened only five times in NHL history
But Florida responded like a champion, and now we have a series heading into Game 4.
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Mirtle: Panthers are hammering Maple Leafs in one key area. Will it matter?
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Joseph Woll replaced Anthony Stolarz in goal during Toronto's win in Game 1, and he will start for the third straight game tonight. So how has he fared in the series?
Woll has earned two wins but has allowed 11 goals and has an .869 save percentage. He allowed five goals on 36 shots in Florida's win in Game 3.
Florida's Brad Marchand is celebrating his birthday today, so there could be some fireworks in tonight's game. We all know his history against Toronto in the postseason.
And overall, he has been a playoff star. Marchand has 58 goals, 88 assists and a plus-minus of plus-38 in 165 career playoff games.
Anthony Stolarz was injured in the first game of this series, and it doesn't appear likely that he will return for Toronto against Florida.
“(Stolarz) has not skated yet,” Leafs coach Craig Berube said the morning after the Leafs lost 5-4 in Game 3 to the Panthers.
Game 4 is tonight with Joseph Woll in the lineup for the Maple Leafs.
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Leafs goalie Anthony Stolarz appears unlikely to return to series vs. Panthers, hasn’t begun skating
Two years, nearly to the day, before Game 3 against the Florida Panthers, Sheldon Keefe turned to a young goalie to keep the Toronto Maple Leafs’ season alive.
The then-Leafs coach tapped Joseph Woll instead of the veteran Matt Murray, even after Woll had missed training camp with injury and only played seven regular-season games.
Keefe believed in Woll’s abilities in a desperate time.
“(Woll) is well above what we had anticipated in terms of the timeline,” Keefe said on May 10, 2023. Woll had just stopped 24 of 25 shots in a Game 4 win against the Panthers. “For him to play the way that he has and the way that he did in the last regular-season game against Tampa, and to play the way that he has when he has come through the net here in the playoffs, is why we had no question that he would be able to go today. He did a tremendous job.”
Now, two years later, still in South Florida, the Leafs are waiting for that version of Woll to emerge in the playoffs.
GO FURTHER
Clock ticking on Joseph Woll to rediscover top form for Maple Leafs in NHL playoffs
Panthers coach Paul Maurice did something curious early in Game 3.
He took the pair of Selke Trophy candidates on his top line, Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart, and steered them away from the Maple Leafs’ No. 1 unit of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and Matthew Knies and the primary matchup from games 1 and 2 in Toronto.
The Matthews-led line burned Barkov’s crew on the very first shift of the game. The change came soon after.
What did Maurice do? He sent another line to defend against Matthews and let Barkov and Reinhart wreak havoc elsewhere.
The Leafs were exploited Friday in Florida, a game they ended up losing 5-4 in overtime, and this was how.
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Brad Marchand has been here before. So have the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Marchand now has 33 points in 31 career playoff games against Toronto — third-most in history among the franchise’s opponents behind Detroit Red Wings legends Alex Delvecchio (35) and Gordie Howe (53). And he did the damage in Florida's Game 3 win, getting the Panthers back in the series.
Will that continue tonight?
No one can count out those comeback cats. Toronto went up 2-0 on the road, with goals from Matthew Knies and John Tavares. But Aleksander Barkov got Florida on the board in the first period.
A Tavares power-play goal, early in the second, helped pad the Maple Leafs’ lead. But the Panthers clawed back, with goals from Sam Reinhart, Carter Verhaeghe and Jonah Gadjovich in the second period. A Morgan Rielly third-period tally tied the score 4-4 and forced overtime, where Brad Marchand scored the game-winner.
The Panthers drove play through stretches of Game 3, especially in overtime. The top-six chipping into the scoring was key here, because it gave Florida three scoring lines that few can match up to. That scoring helped make up for some iffy goaltending from Sergei Bobrovsky, who allowed 1.3 goals above expected in all situations, according to NaturalStatTrick. Joseph Woll fell slightly below average, too, but he also faced a heftier workload of 4.1 expected goals.
These two teams are using their physicality in different ways, and it shows up in the stats.
The smaller, faster Maple Leafs are throwing their bodies on the line with 69 blocked shots in this series so far compared to the Panthers' 33 blocked shots.
The brawnier Panthers are taking the punishment to Toronto directly with 154 hits compared to 109 for the Maple Leafs.
You can make a case that Toronto's Auston Matthews and Florida's Matthew Tkachuk are the two best American-born players in this generation of NHL stars. The two played central roles on Team USA in the 4 Nations Face-Off in February.
So it's a bit stunning that neither superstar has a goal in this series.
Will that change tonight?
William Nylander's goal scored 33 seconds into Game 1 set the stage for a series-opening victory as the Maple Leafs held off a Panthers rally. Florida completed the comeback in Game 3 after Matthew Knies scored just 23 seconds into the game, eventually helping Toronto out to a 3-1 lead before the Panthers erased it in the second period.
Still, another early go would go a long way to a vital Game 4 win for the Maple Leafs.
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Florida's win on Friday was the seventh consecutive victory by a defending Stanley Cup champion in a Game 3 when facing a 2-0 series deficit.
Those reigning champions have come back to win three of the past six series after losing the first two games: Tampa Bay in the 2022 conference finals, Chicago in the 2014 first round and Los Angeles in the 2013 conference quarterfinals.
The Toronto Maple Leafs came flying out of the gates in Game 3, but the Florida Panthers remain the reigning Stanley Cup champions for a reason.
After allowing two quick goals and then allowing the Leafs to build a 3-1 lead, the Panthers stormed back with three unanswered goals in the second period to build a 4-3 lead. They gave up the lead in the third period, but Brad Marchand did what he does best and sunk the Leafs with an overtime goal.
After Marchand’s overtime goal and a second period that felt like one of the Panthers’ best in the playoffs, they now look alive and well in the series. They’re still down 2-1, but crucially, they appear to have figured out how to beat Leafs goalie Joseph Woll.
After entering the second round of the playoffs as betting underdogs, the Toronto Maple Leafs put the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers on the ropes.
With a spirited and complete 4-3 win in Game 2, the Leafs jumped out to a commanding 2-0 series lead.
Game 2 offered entertainment value and back-and-forth hockey that is not always anticipated in playoff games. While the Panthers owned most of the five-on-five possession and expected goals, the Leafs showed a quality they’ve often lacked: unmitigated pushback.
The Leafs got back in the game after being down in the first and second periods. Max Domi’s goal on a two-on-one gave the Leafs a second-period lead and sent a tense Scotiabank Arena crowd into a frenzy. And just 17 seconds after the Panthers tied the game in the third period, Mitch Marner’s wild shot from distance found its way past Sergei Bobrovsky. Add in goals from William Nylander and Max Pacioretty, and the Leafs certainly got the bounces in Game 2.
The underlying numbers may suggest a different outcome, sure. But if we’re judging on effort alone, you can’t argue with the result the Leafs got in Game 2.
