Nylander, Maple Leafs hold off Panthers in Game 1 of Eastern 2nd Round
William Nylander had two goals and an assist in the first period, and the Toronto Maple Leafs held off the Florida Panthers for a 5-4 win in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Second Round at Scotiabank Arena on Monday.
“We came out and got a couple of good scoring chances and were able to capitalize on them, so that was nice for us,” Nylander said. “We just focus on the next game now.”
Matthew Knies and Chris Tanev each had a goal and an assist, and Max Pacioretty and Jake McCabe each had two assists for the Maple Leafs, who are the No. 1 seed from the Atlantic Division.
Anthony Stolarz made eight saves on nine shots for Toronto before leaving the game with an undisclosed injury at 10:14 of the second period. Joseph Woll made 17 saves in relief.
“It’s a tough situation, for sure, especially in a playoff game with this magnitude,” Berube said of Woll. “He handled it well, I thought, and listen, we got the win.”
Stolarz appeared to take an arm to the head at 7:16 from Florida forward Sam Bennett, who attempted to cut out from behind the net. Stolarz remained in the game before leaving at the next television timeout. Berube said he is currently under evaluation.
“We didn’t know what happened, but we have all the faith in the world in Joe. So, you don’t want anyone to leave the game, but we have faith in our depth, and I thought Joe came in and played well,” Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly said.
Game 2 will be in Toronto on Wednesday (7p.m. ET; CBC, TVAS, SN, ESPN).
Bennett, Eetu Luostarinen and Uvis Balinskis scored in the third period, and Brad Marchand and Carter Verhaeghe each had two assists for the Panthers, who are the No. 3 seed from the Atlantic Division. Sergei Bobrovsky made 24 saves.
“It was the perfect storm of that’s not the way you want to start when everyone has lots of energy and jump, but there’s some tension to it always at the start,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said. “So when you’re behind one, that’s our first period. We didn’t look like ourselves. We righted it in the second and had a pretty good push in the third.”
Nylander gave Toronto a 1-0 lead 33 seconds into the first period. He collected a pass at the blue line that went along the boards from Pacioretty, who was behind the net, and skated to the bottom of the right face-off circle before scoring low glove side.
Nylander’s second goal of the period extended it to 2-0 at 12:51. He got to a rebound in the slot after Bobrovsky made a left pad save on Oliver Ekman-Larsson and shot over his glove from just above the crease.
Seth Jones cut it to 2-1 at 16:57. Toronto took a bench minor penalty for too many men on the ice while on the power play, resulting in a 47-second power play for the Panthers, during which Jones scored high blocker from the high slot.
Rielly responded 19 seconds later on the next shift, pushing it to 3-1 when he carried the puck in on a 2-on-1 with John Tavares and shot past Bobrovsky’s blocker from the left hash marks.
“I thought it was a good effort,” Rielly said. “A good start was important, but it’s going to be a long one, so enjoy it but then we’ll get right back to work.”
Tanev made it 4-1 at 7:50 of the second period after his shot from the point bounced on the ice in the slot and hopped over Bobrovsky’s right pad.
“We knew they were going to come hard and strong, so it wasn’t a great start by us,” Florida captain Aleksander Barkov said. “But we got a little better as the game went on and a little bit of the second and third period was good, so we learn again from this game. Not the result we wanted but we learn and move on.”
Luostarinen cut it to 4-2 at 1:39 of the third period when he redirected a pass at the top of the crease from Anton Lundell with a one-handed deflection.
Balinskis then made it 4-3 at 4:30, taking a pass at the blue line from Nate Schmidt before skating to the left face-off dot and shooting over Woll’s glove. The goal led to Toronto calling a timeout.
“Just play our game. We sort of sat back a little bit to start the period,” Tanev said of Berube’s message during the timeout. “Forecheck, play in their end as much as we can. After it was 4-3, we started to play again and generate a bunch of chances, and huge goal by Knies.”
Knies extended it to 5-3 at 14:00 when he deked to the backhand and shot over Bobrovsky’s glove on a breakaway.
“I just saw that I could spring myself past their defense and Mitch (Marner) made a great play on the wall to get it to me,” Knies said. “I just wanted to beat him high on the glove side. I think we did a lot of video and I got him earlier in the regular season. I just wanted to elevate that one.”
Bennett cut it to 5-4 at 18:05 when his shot from the left dot deflected off Brandon Carlo’s stick and over Woll’s shoulder.
“It’s second round of the playoffs,” Barkov said. “There’s no surprises here. Everyone is going to play as hard as possible. They came out a little better than us, got the lead they needed, but we did some good things in the game and we learn from those.”
