Cote: Cats in command! Off 6-1 win, 3-2 lead, Florida Panthers are better & Toronto knows it | Opinion
Paul Maurice was joking about how good forward Aleksander Barkov is -- how rare his errors are. He could have said the same about goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky.
“I think I’ve caught him making a mistake twice this year,” the Florida Panthers coach had said before Wednesday’s game, then smiled. “We made a video of it.”
Bobrovsky stopped just about everything thrown at him in Game 5 in Toronto, but it wasn’t even what was most impressive about the Cats’ 6-1 dismantling of the Maple Leafs in the NHL’s second round playoffs to turn a 2-2 series majorly in Florida’s favor now at 3-2 heading home.
It was the Panthers’ depth that flexed all over the ice Wednesday, every line, every shift, everybody.
Six different players cashed goals, and the first five were from uncommon offensive sources. Only Sam Bennett’s power-play goal to cap the rout was from an expected goalsman.
It was a second straight shutout for Bobrovsky until the Leafs scored a meaningless goal with 1:06 left to play.
“We are happy where we are,” said Bob. “But also humbled and focused.”
OK, he didn’t say this. I did:
The series is done.
The Panthers have proven themselves a level better, and the Maple Leafs know it.
Toronto will not get up from this beat-down.
“I don’t have an answer for you,” Leafs coach Craig Berube said afterward. “It’s sports. Things happen. [The Panthers] were hungrier.”
“There are no excuses,” said Toronto’s Auston Matthews.
Said the Leafs’ Mitch Marner of his team’s Game 5: ”Flush it down the toilet.”
The Leafs were Dead Men Skating much of this game, beaten long before the clock said so.
In NHL playoff history teams with a 3-2 lead win the series 79.4 percent of the time. Florida can add to that total in Game 6 at home in Sunrise Friday night. Otherwise it’s a Game 7 back in Toronto on Sunday.
I like the Panthers’ odds the way a fat man likes an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Florida in its third straight win this series has ascended to a whole different level now.
After a shaky start to this series the Panthers are looking like what they are:
A reigning Stanley Cup champion feeling its muscle, feeling it can win it all again.
The Panthers silenced the crowd in Ontario on an Aaron Ekblad wrist-shot goal with 5:22 left in the first period, off a past from Sam Reinhart Also in on creating the first goal: Jesper Boqvist, inserted into that line to replace the injured Evan Rodrigues.
“It’s a belief in our group,” Ekbald said afterward. “But the job’s not done.”
Florida’s early lead justified the flow of play, as Ekblad’s score made it 13-3 in shots on goal, Cats.
“Getting the lead early is huge,” said Carter Verhaeghe.
And if Panthers fans didn’t feel good enough right then: Their team was 16-0 when leading after one period in the past three postseasons under Maurice. (Make it 17-0.)
“They out-skated us, out-worked us, out-competed us,” said Berube of his team’s opening period.
It would get worse for him.
It was 2-0 around mid-second on Dmitry Kulikov’s slap shot that misdirected ever so slightly off a Leaf stick past goaltender Joseph Woll, again in for injured starter Anthony Stolarz, who seems close to returning.
Florida entered having eight players with eight-plus points in this postseason. They have four lines they trust. They flex their depth to a degree most opponents have no answer.
Game 5 was slipping fast from Toronto’s grip.
It was 3-0 just a few minutes later when Boqvist near the crease redirected a shot by Reinhart -- Boqvist’s impact underlining Maurice’s magical touch with this team and its roster and lines.
“Those are the fun stories for our room,” said Maurice of Boqvist.
The Leafs continued melting on ice. It was 4-0 late in the second on a Niko Mikkola slap slot -- the 16th different Cat to score a goal in this postseason, a league high. And Mikkola’s was the third goal from a Florida blue-liner this night.
“We know the next one is the hardest one.,” he said.
A. J. Greer later became the 17th different Panther to score a goal this postseason.
“If we can steal one in their building, that’s the name of the game,” Mikkola had said.
Consider it done. Except this win was not stolen. This was a rout richly earned, not stolen, but taken.
The second period ended with scattered booing heard in the Toronto arena.
Is Canada getting desperate?
Conspiracy theories bloom all over social media about how no team from Canada has won a Stanley Cup since ever-distant 1993. Trump’s behind it! Wait, he doesn’t go back that far. Yeah but how can Edmonton’s Connor McDavid have gone this long without winning it all! (McOverrated?)
By the way, whatever happened to Auston Matthews? Once called by some the best U.S.-born player in the NHL, Toronto’s Matthews just failed to score a goal in a 10th straight game vs. Florida.
Wednesday I also saw a clearly bogus online “report” from some non-journalist nerd with a laptop who “reported” (falsely) that Wayne Gretzky had alleged Panthers owner Vinnie Viola had paid ”thousands of dollars” to influence the referees in Florida’s favor in Game 4. Clearly made-up. Preposterous. It’s what happens when social media allows (if not encourages) patently fake news.
Granted, the NHL suspended Panthers minority owner Doug Cifu from all involvement with the team after a series of offensive social media posts Sunday night in an exchange with a Toronto fan. Cifu apologized in a statement.
But the idea the reigning champion Panthers would need bribery to beat Toronto!? Did you see Game 5?
The Maple Leafs last raised the Cup in 1967.
Wednesday made it feel all but certain that sad skid across the generations will continue.
This story was originally published May 14, 2025 at 9:58 PM.
