Maple Leafs shut out Panthers in Game 6, avoid elimination
Joseph Woll made 22 saves for his first career postseason shutout, and the Toronto Maple Leafs avoided elimination with a 2-0 win against the Florida Panthers in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Second Round at Amerant Bank Arena on Friday.
Game 7 will be at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto on Sunday (7:30 p.m. ET; CBC, TVAS, SN, TNT, truTV, MAX).
“This is a pretty special opportunity for our team,” Woll said. “We felt good going in. We know our process and we’re going to carry that through.”
Auston Matthews and Max Pacioretty scored in the third period for the Maple Leafs, who are the No. 1 seed from the Atlantic Division.
Toronto had allowed 13 goals in the previous three games of the series (all losses).
“There is always pressure,” Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube said. “We came out and skated, were on our toes, played our game. We played a simple game tonight and were determined. That stands out to me more than anything. … We were doing all the little things right.”
Sergei Bobrovsky made 15 saves for the Panthers, who are the No. 3 seed from the Atlantic.
Florida finished the game with 81 shot attempts, 31 of which were blocked by Toronto.
“We didn’t get the puck there early enough, but we launched it a bunch of times,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “I thought we were late with the puck. … There’s not much offense, and these are two pretty good offensive teams, yet there was not much to be had out there. They played hard, we played hard, and it was tight.”
Matthews scored his first goal of the series to give the Maple Leafs a 1-0 lead at 6:20 of the third. He took a short pass from Mitch Marner at the blue line and skated to the top of the left circle before shooting five-hole on Bobrovsky.
The play started after Aaron Ekblad couldn’t corral a pass from Gustav Forsling while trying to exit the defensive zone.
“The willingness to grind through 60 minutes like that in a tight game,” Matthews said when asked what part of the game he was most proud of. “[Woll] made some big saves. I thought we competed hard and obviously broke through in the third. We gritted it out. Really proud of all the guys in the room from top to bottom. We stuck together. There’s a lot of noise on the outside, but the main focus is on the 20-plus guys in the room every day playing for one another.”
Pacioretty made it 2-0 at 14:17. Bobby McMann got to a loose puck in the neutral zone, skated in on a rush and sent a centering pass to Pacioretty, who chipped it under the blocker arm of Bobrovsky.
“They took care of one on our home ice,” Florida forward Matthew Tkachuk said. “They played really well and did what they did earlier in the series by blocking shots. We had a good push in the second, but they played really well in the third once they got the lead there. Back to the drawing board I guess. We were down 2-0 in this series, so we would have loved a Game 7. We’re not going to sit here and pout about it.”
The Maple Leafs played parts of the second and third period without forward Matthew Knies, who appeared to be in discomfort on the bench late in the first period.
“He is dealing with something that happened here,” Berube said. “We have to look at him, see how he’s feeling [Saturday], see how he is.”
