FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- This is it for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
After taking a 2-0 lead in the best-of-7 Eastern Conference Second Round -- and getting to overtime in Game 3 -- the Maple Leafs have dropped three straight games to the Florida Panthers and now find themselves on the brink of elimination.
They will need to defeat the Panthers in Game 6 at Amerant Bank Arena on Friday (8 p.m. ET; MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS, CBC) or find themselves heading home early for the offseason.
“I’m not thinking of the past,” Toronto forward Mitch Marner said. “This is a totally new team, a totally new moment. We’re excited for the moment. It’s not going to be an easy game, we’ve got to make sure we bring our best.”
It was particularly notable that in Game 5, with the series tied, the Maple Leafs came out flat, with little jump and less pushback, and fell to the Panthers, 6-1, coming 66 seconds from being shut out by goalie Sergei Bobrovsky in consecutive games.
“For the most part, you flush [Game 5],” Toronto forward John Tavares said. “But obviously we have to play a lot better than we did to earn the result that we want today.”
Said Panthers forward Brad Marchand, “It has no impact on the game tonight. If anything, it’s going to make them hungrier to have a bounce-back game and prove a lot of people wrong, which is a very dangerous combination. We have to play our best game tonight. No question about that.”
For the Panthers, the recipe is largely the same as it has been the past three games, especially starting in the second half of Game 3. The Panthers have tightened up defensively, found their ability to forecheck and play with physicality, and gotten near-perfect play from Bobrovsky.
On the line is a third straight trip to the Eastern Conference Final, where the Panthers would face the Carolina Hurricanes, who advanced on Thursday by defeating the Washington Capitals in Game 5 of their series.
“You don’t focus on anything else, other than the next play, the next shift,” Marchand said. “I think the biggest thing with this group is everyone trusts in each other to do their job and we have that trust in ourselves to do our job.”
They just have to do it again, as the Maple Leafs throw everything they can at them.
“I think this is what you work for all year long,” Tavares said. “So to get to this point in the season and wanting to continue on and keep pushing toward the ultimate goal. So I think it’s just a reminder of the work that gets put in, the things you build as a group throughout the season.
“And when you face adversity or challenges like this, this is what it’s all about and having the chance to go out there and compete and find your way.”
The Panthers are 5-1 (.833) all-time when leading 3-2 in a best-of-7 series. When the Maple Leafs trail 3-2 in a series, their all-time record is 6-18 (.250).
Here is a breakdown of Game 6:
Maple Leafs: Auston Matthews highlighted the need for the Maple Leafs to win puck battles, something he believed they did not do enough of in Game 5. “Those are so important,” he said. “They’re a big, heavy team, obviously, and they’re strong down low. So just being stronger in those puck battles, winning those 50-50s to be able to break out and get the puck out of our own zone and into the neutral zone and the offensive zone.” The Maple Leafs also need the goalie performance they got in Game 4, when Joseph Woll made 35 saves on 37 shots, rather than the one in Game 5, when he allowed five goals on 25 shots, getting pulled at 6:23 of the third.
Panthers: They know how to close out a team. They also know what it is not to be able to close out a team. In the first round, the Panthers defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 5 after going up 3-1. They’ll try to cut off the Maple Leafs here -- unlike in the Stanley Cup Final last season when they went up 3-0 before the Edmonton Oilers took them to Game 7, when the Panthers came away with the win and the Cup. Mostly, they need to do more of the same, after allowing just one goal to the Maple Leafs in the past two games, with their stifling hard-gap defense and the goaltending they’ve gotten from Bobrovsky.
Number to know: 143:25. Bobrovsky set a franchise playoff record of 143:25 straight shutout minutes, starting in Game 3 and ending at 18:54 of Game 5 when Nicholas Robertson scored. He beat the mark of 141:31 set by John Vanbiesbrouck in Games 3 and 4 of the 1996 Stanley Cup Final.
What to look for: The Maple Leafs have a reputation for not being able to win big games, for having all the talent in the world, but failing to advance as far as their talent would seemingly allow. Can they turn that around, pushing the Panthers to a Game 7 back at Scotiabank Arena on Sunday? The Panthers have gotten goals from an incredibly balanced group of players, with 17 goal-scorers and every forward but one with a point. Can they continue to get production up and down the lineup?
