Cote: Florida Panthers’ slow start lost Game 1 in Toronto, but don’t dare doubt champion Cats | Opinion
So the Florida Panthers skate past rival Tampa Bay 4-1 in the NHL playoffs’ first round ... and what? You thought this would be easy? That other teams were going to curtsy and bow to the reigning Stanley Cup champions?
Toronto has not won a Stanley Cup (or played in a Final) since 1967. No team in this postseason is hungry quite like that. The Maple Leafs haven’t even gotten past the second round since 2002.
And if the Panthers get past this round despite Monday’s Game 1 loss, the Washington Capitals and all-time goals leader Alex Ovechkin might be waiting.
Beyond that, should Florida keep advancing, potential foes from the west include Connor McDavid and Edmonton in what would be a Stanley Cup rematch.
The Cats’ climb is long.
And just got steeper.
We haven’t seen this in awhile: the Panthers getting handled, dominated for much of the game before rallying late but still losing Monday, 5-4, as a 4-1 game narrowed into a late thriller.
This was the NHL’s only game Monday night. North America was watching. It was Toronto, the team with the most wins in the Eastern Conference and a No. 1 seed, vs. the reigning champs — and a rematch series after the Cats bounced the Leafs in the second round in five games two years ago.
Dating to the championship run last postseason Florida was on a 4-2 playoff run in Game 1s away from home.
“We don’t mind it. We like it,” Cats forward Evan Rodrigues had said of starting a series away. “Going in, starting on the road and being able to steal one and trying to take the crowd out of it gives you a little extra boost, I’d say.”
Makes sense, in theory.
Only now the pressure to “steal one” shifts squarely onto Florida in Game 2 Wednesday night back in the Ontario province.
The Panthers also started 0-1 in the second round last year, to Boston, then won three straight and won in six.
This time, though, the other team has home-ice advantage.
In NHL playoff history teams in an 0-1 hole advance only 31.9% of the time. That flips fast, of course, if the Cats “steal” that road win Wednesday. If.
Won’t happen unless Monday proves to have been a hard lesson learned. And that was precisely the postgame mantra from the champs.
“[Toronto] had the hometown jump, they were humpin’ pretty good, and we were a little late on just about everything they did,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said of his team’s start. “It was the perfect storm of ‘That’s not the way you wanna start.’ That was our first period. Didn’t look like ourselves. Righted it in the second, then had pretty good push in the third.”
Said Cats Captain Aleksander Barkov, the bridge of his nose bloody postgame: “Wasn’t a great start by us. We learn from this game and move on. Our effort in the third period was very good.”
What was the message to the team before that third?
“Start playing our game,” Barkov said.
Florida had won the season series with Toronto 3-1, outscoring the Leafs by 13-7. But as Maurice said, accurately, “The regular season doesn’t tell you anything.”
The first period in Game 1 was a defensive hot mess that buried the Cats in a 3-1 hole.
A pair of William Nylander goals put Toronto up 2-0, the first a slap shot 33 seconds into the game that Sergei Bobrovsky didn’t seem to expect — or see, thanks to a John Tavares screen at the crease. The second goal went high over Bob’s glove.
Florida halved the deficit on Seth Jones’ power-play score on a long slap shot off a pass from Matthew Tkachuk. But Panthers fans weren’t even done cheering back home when, 18 seconds later, the Leafs were up 3-1 on a Morgan Rielly shot.
The Panthers were outshot 12-4 in the opening period, but it was on the defensive end that Florida seemed out of sorts. Toronto looked faster ... or were the Cats inexplicably sluggish?
“A little sloppy start. A little slow there,” said Eetu Luostarinen.
“Team defense — that’s what wins this time of year,” Tkachuk had said earlier Monday after the team’s morning skate.
Toronto made it 4-1 in the second period as a player who’d scored only three goals all season, Chris Tanev, bounced the puck past Bobrovsky to his right — an uncharacteristic plain miss by the veteran goaltender.
Florida drew within 4-2 in the third on a Luostarinen shot off an Anton Lundell pass — and then within 4-3 on Uvis Balinskis’ shot three minutes later.
Suddenly the Toronto crowd’s sound turned from festive to fretful.
Florida had found momentum after Toronto goalie Anthony Stolarz, the former Panther, left the game soon after a collision at the net with the Cats’ Sam Bennett. Stolarz was seen vomiting in the bench area and briefly hospitalized, and is questionable to play Wednesday. Bennett’s hit was reviewed by the league but there was no suspension issued. It was against Leafs backup goalie Joseph Wall that the Cats made a game of it.
Bennett and Stolarz are friends from their teammate days. Bennett called him. They spoke. Bennett called the hit accidental, but his reputation chases him.
“I play a hard style of hockey and people get upset by it and worked up,” he said Tuesday following practice. “I try to just tune that out and play my game. I play on the edge, play hard, but never try to cross that line.”
Maurice got uncharacteristically agitated when Tuesday’s off-day line of media queries wouldn’t get off Bennett.
“Call the fire department, your hair’s on fire, let’s move on.” he said. “Now he’s a villain? There were far more egregious collisions in that game.”
On the other end, Bobrovsky shook off his early performance and was brilliant late — until Leaf Matthew Knies beat him for Toronto’s final goal with six minutes to play. The Cats were short a man on the score with a botched line change, though it did not seem to affect Knies’ breakaway.
The Panthers weren’t done, of course. Bennett’s goal off the crossbar made it 5-4 with 1:55 left as the crowd held it breath and the Leafs held on.
A silver lining: The Cats penalty kill that had dominated Tampa was back in force Monday, shutting down all five of Toronto’s power play chances. Another: Defenseman Aaron Ekblad returns Wednesday from a two-game suspension.
The Florida Panthers, even with a somewhat sloppy Game 1 loss unlike them, have earned the benefit of doubt moving forward.
They have earned the right to not be doubted.
This story was originally published May 5, 2025 at 10:53 PM.
