Maple Leafs stay alive, edge Panthers in Game 4 of East 2nd Round

Joseph Woll made 24 saves, and the Toronto Maple Leafs avoided elimination with a 2-1 win against the Florida Panthers in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Second Round at FLA Live Arena on Wednesday.

It was Woll’s first career start in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Ilya Samsonov, the Maple Leafs’ No. 1 goalie, was unavailable due to an upper-body injury.

“Yeah, it was a pretty awesome game to get put into and any opportunity to get with this team is pretty special,” Woll said. “It was awesome for me to see how hard we played tonight, and guys blocking shots (21) and put it all on the line was pretty awesome.”

Florida leads the best-of-7 series, 3-1. Game 5 will be in Toronto on Friday.

Mitchell Marner had a goal and an assist, and William Nylander scored for the Maple Leafs, the No. 2 seed from the Atlantic Division.

“I thought from an effort standpoint, I thought it was our best effort of the season,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “You saw all the way through from start to finish, there was no real letup. Obviously, it’s a very close game but our competitiveness defensively, and urgency defensively, was the best it’s been all year. It was an unbelievable job by our guys here tonight.”

Sam Reinhart scored, and Sergei Bobrovsky made 23 saves for the Panthers, the second wild card from the East.

“I think we didn’t quite establish our offensive game enough, and our forecheck leads to that,” Reinhart said. “I think we were a little loose through the neutral zone and that led to less [offensive] zone time, less opportunities for us tonight.”

Nylander gave the Maple Leafs a 1-0 lead at 3:29 of the second period on a power play. After Michael Bunting had his pass along the boards bounce off the referee directly to Nylander alone in front, his backhand went in off the post and the mask of Bobrovsky.

“It’s a little unlucky bounce, but it is what it is,” Bobrovsky said. “I thought we had a good game. We competed, we fought, we played a solid defensive game. They’re a good team as well, so that’s the score tonight.”

John Tavares had a chance to extend the lead on a breakaway at 19:38 but was stopped by Bobrovsky.

Marner then made it 2-0 at 10:03 of the third period with a wrist shot from the point through traffic.

“Just a complete effort,” Marner said. “We wanted to just take it shift by shift for a full 60 [minutes] and I thought we did a great job.”

Reinhart cut it to 2-1 with a power-play goal at 12:13 when he knocked in a loose puck in the crease after his one-timer from the slot squeaked past Woll.

Toronto then called a timeout before holding Florida to four shots on goal during the remaining 7:47, including only one shot in the final three minutes.

“I thought it was a tremendous third period for us in a lot of ways with the season on the line,” Keefe said. “And the guys just dug in and did what they needed to do to get the win. Loved that we got the second goal, of course, and how we got it. And then loved the response when they made it 2-1. No panic. Just went out we finished the job.”