The Florida Panthers pulled off another MASSIVE comeback on Tuesday night, this time against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Florida was down 5-1 with a little over eight minutes left in the second period, and ended up winning 7-6 in OT. With their win, Florida improves to 49-15-6 and 104 points, the most in franchise history.
First Period:
There would be multiple penalties called in this game. The first one would be called pretty quickly at 3:33 when T.J. Brodie was called for hooking Anthony Duclair. 13 seconds later, the Panthers would draw first blood when Aleksander Barkov’s sweeping backhand would set Sam Reinhart up perfectly at the net and would tip it past Erik Kallgren.
After the Panthers killed a Ryan Lomberg penalty, they would go a man down at 14:04 when Brandon Montour tripped Colin Blackwell. The Leafs and their 30% power play unit (1st in the NHL) would go to work here. To no one’s surprise, the unit would connect, tying the game at one when William Nylander slapped a shot home past Sergei Bobrovsky.
Before the period was over, the Panthers got to go on another power play with 18:31 gone in the period when Mark Giordano hooked Anthony Duclair.
Second Period: The NHL’s Most Momentum Sling in History!?
The Leafs’ special teams unit was connecting on both sides, and this included the penalty kill. As the Panthers power play was expiring, Mitch Marner (who had a total of three points on the night) would score two goals in the opening 1:07 of the second period. First, he found an opening on a breakaway, and was able to weave past defenders and beat Bobrovsky to give the Leafs their first lead (2-1). Then, 37 seconds after scoring short-handed, Marner would score again on the power play when he would net a wrister short-side from the circle.
The Panthers hopes looked like they were going to dwindle when 57 seconds later, Colin Blackwell extended the lead to 4-1 when he tipped one past Bobrovsky. After allowing four goals on 14 shots, Bobrovsky would be pulled for Spencer Knight.
However, the avalanche of goals for the Leafs would not stop with Knight being in, as they made it 5-1 when Jake Muzzin would shoot it from the left side.
The Leafs would get a bench penalty at 11:15. Then, the comeback started…
37 seconds into their power play, Sam Reinhart would get his second goal of the game when he recovered his own rebound and put it past Kallgren.
It looked liked the Leafs would draw full momentum back when they would get back on the power play, but that was not the case. Radko Gudas would find an opening and have an incredible shot from the blue line, and would find twine when it passed Kallgren’s five hole. After this shot, a puck hit Kallgren high, and he had to leave the game for backup Jack Campbell. Kallgren saved 20 of a possible 23 shots.
Claude Giroux would score his first goal as a Panther to cut the game to one with 17:56 gone. Jonathan Huberdeau set him up perfectly for a give-and-go to beat Campbell and put the deficit at one before the intermission. It would be Huberdeau’s 75th assist on the season.
Third Period:
Kyle Clifford would get another penalty, and the red hot Panther power play would go to work again. Jonathan Huberdeau would add another goal to tie the game at five at 2:45. It would also be a huge milestone in Panthers history, with Huberdeau being the first 100-point scorer in Cats history.
The Panthers would take the lead when Aleksander Barkov found a loose puck and put it home from up close for his 34th of the season.
However, the Leafs would not go away. Robert Hagg would get called for a hooking penalty on Pierre Engvall, and the Leafs would go back on the power play. Again, to no one’s surprise, they would connect to tie the game at six when John Tavares would finish the feed on a Mitch Marner assist.
Overtime:
This game wouldn’t be anything else without extra hockey. This is exactly what happened Tuesday. Both teams started out with great chances, stopped by both Knight and Campbell.
With more than half of the 3-on-3 overtime period gone, Aleksander Barkov and MacKenzie Weegar would set up Jonathan Huberdeau perfectly. Huberdeau would score top-shelf past Campbell, which sent Steve Goldstein into another infamous “LET’S GO HOME BABY!!”
Takeaways:
- With their comeback, the Panthers have accomplished an NHL-record five three-goal comebacks in a single season.
- Florida has 104 points on the season, which beats out the 103 they ended with in 2016, when they last won the Atlantic Division.
- With their loss, it’s Toronto’s fifth game where they blew a three-or-more goal lead, the most since they blew a 4-1 lead in Boston in the 2013 playoffs.
Next Up:
The Panthers will have a back-to-back this weekend, hosting the Sabres on Friday at 7 pm, and traveling to Nashville to play the Predators on Saturday at 6 pm.