The Amazin’ Florida Panthers roll on, win 3-2 in OT, own series with 3-0 lead on Toronto | Opinion
This was the night the run on blades was going to end, right? You had that feeling. The Florida Panthers’ stirring streak of five consecutive NHL playoff wins — four on the road, three in elimination games, three coming from behind — was simply due an off-performance against a Toronto Maple Leafs squad skating for its postseason life.
Nope. Not yet.
The miracle on ice goes on.
Make it six postseason victories in a row, three in overtime and a fourth overcoming deficits, for the best story right now in all of hockey.
The Panthers, twice behind, scored a 3-2 home overtime victory over Toronto on Sunday night that gave the Cats a beyond-commanding 3-0 series lead in the second round of these Stanley Cup playoffs.
The Panthers, a lowly No. 8 seed, knocked off the mighty Boston Bruins and now are poised to do the same to the favored Maple Leafs.
Panthers fans mocked Leafs fans by chanting, “We want Florida!” -- what Toronto fans had chanted in hoping to play the Panthers instead of the Bruins. Careful what you wish for?
The Panthers won Sunday on Sam Reinhart’s unassisted wraparound goal off his own carom pass off the boards just 3:02 into overtime, and it meant all but sudden death for Toronto.
“Building was crazy. So much fun to play hockey,” said goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, who allowed a goal on the first shot and then was brilliant. “We were solid defensively. All the little things nobody sees, we did that.”
“A lot of guys are stepping up big,” said Reinhart of his game-winner.
The Panthers won because they found a way on a night when stars Matthew Tkachuk and Aleksander Barkov were quiet (for them) and off the scoresheet.
They won because they stayed entirely out of the penalty box, a rarity.
They won because, well, they’re, really good.
They won because, after a disappointing regular season barely good enough to sneak into the playoffs, the Panthers have found some sort of magic elixir, a power and cohesion and belief that has been sustainable.
Miami Heat icon Udonis Haslem banged the ceremonial drum before the game to the roar of the crowd, which alternated chants of “Let’s go Panthers!” and “Go, Heat, go!” to U.D.’s beat. He wore an Anthony Duclair jersey.
“I got cool with Duclair a couple years ago, and told him that when I had time I would come out,” said Haslem, whose Heat lead the Knicks 2-1 with Game 4 at home Monday. “It’s amazing here right now. In South Florida sports we always feel like the underdogs, but these guys on the Panthers, the heart they play with, it’s inspiring.”
The five playoff wins in a row coming in — the three straight elimination-game survivals to oust Boston then the 2-0 sweep in Toronto — imbued the Panthers with confidence but zero sense it would be easy from here. Florida trailed in three of those five wins.
“At no point in the last nine [postseason] games have we felt we dominated the game,” coach Paul Maurice said. “The teams we’re playing are way too powerful. We’re not walking out of the rink feeling rich or royal. We just scratch and claw.”
They just did it again.
After five games in a nine-day span the Cats needed the two days’ rest entering Sunday.
“Finally woke up this morning feeling pretty good,” Carter Verhaeghe said after the Sunday morning skate. “It’s a grind playing so many games in such a short time.”
“We were gassed [in Game 2],” admitted the coach. “This five-game stretch has been as intense as any in hockey I’ve ever seen.”
Make it six consecutive games of almost surreal intensity.
“The grind has made us stronger,” Anton Lundell said coming out of the celebrating dressing room.
With four of those previous five wins on the road, Florida looked forward to a lift from the home crowd Sunday.
“It drove us in Game 6 [against Boston]. That building,” Maurice said. “It was wired from the start. The crowd becomes more and more important. The hockey doesn’t necessarily get better. The bodies and minds can only handle so much. At the end of it, the juice is all form the home crowd.”
It wasn’t there Sunday, at least not at first.
Florida’s 2-0 series lead worked against a sense of desperation or urgency from the crowd. An early Toronto goal, just 2:26 into the game, was another reason. The wrist-shot score by the Leafs’ Sam Lafferty beat Bobrovsky and it was the hundreds of blue-jersey Toronto fans in the barn who rose in full voice.
But these Cats don’t quit.
Florida caught a break in the first minute of the second period when Leafs goaltender Ilya Samsonov went off injured and out for the game in a collision with Reinhart that dislodged the goal. (There was no penalty.) Two minutes later Duclair cashed a power-play goal on a breakaway to even it 1-1 with one second left in the Toronto penalty.
Duclair — credit the inspiration of Haslem having worn his jersey? — went right-left-in to fool the new goalie, Joseph Woll.
“Let’s go baby!” you saw Duclair scream into the din as teammates swarmed him in a joy huddle.
Toronto regained the lead 2-1 later in the second on a defensive lapse that left Erik Gustafsson unattended on the far side of the crease for an easy put-in.
Remember, though: Cats don’t quit.
Bobrovsky rose up, again, Maurice calling him “a veteran whose got the scars , and can handle it.”
Verhaeghe made the horn blast with his fourth goal of the postseason, a redirect off slap-shot that Woll could not seem to track as the puck flew through a forest of legs to make it 2-2. Then “Bob” dug in.
Desperate Toronto was skating to avoid the near-impossible historical odds a 3-0 series hole presents. In NHL annals 203 teams have been down three-nil and 199 have failed to survive that. The four exceptions were in 1942, 1975, 2010 and 2014. History gives Florida up 3-0 a 98 percent likelihood now of advancing, and also a chance for the club’s first-ever advance via a four-game sweep in Game 4 back in Sunrise on Wednesday.
But desperate Toronto could not avoid Reinhart making the horn blast in overtime and sending a party into the streets Sunday.
And now it’s 3-0
Three and oh my.
This story was originally published May 7, 2023 at 9:42 PM.
