TORONTO – The Florida Panthers failed to find the goals they needed on the first stop of their road trip, losing 4-1 to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday at Scotiabank Arena.
Currently, the Panthers (22-17-3) and Maple Leafs (20-15-7) both have 47 points.
“I didn’t like the game tonight,” head coach Paul Maurice said.
When the Maple Leafs got a power play early in the first period, Sergei Bobrovsky shut out Auston Matthews on a breakaway and went into the penalty kill clutch.
After the Panthers broke their sticks and sent the play the other way, Easton Cowan completed a nifty passing sequence and scored a tap-in goal from the right side to put the Maple Leafs ahead, 1-0 at 19:36.
Just 42 seconds into the second period, Matthew Knies doubled the Maple Leafs’ lead when he tipped in a shot from Troy Stecher to make it 2-0. Moments later, Kunis broke through the defense and set up Matthews’ goal to make it 3-0 at 4:01.
The Panthers struggled to maintain pressure, allowing just 13 shots on goal through two periods.
“They were getting traffic to the net and playing physical,” forward Carter Verhaeg said of the Maple Leafs. “They made some great plays there. They were a little faster than us tonight and it showed.”
Despite finishing the second period, Brad Marchand did not return for the third period.
Maurice, who was already without several star players such as Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk, said after the game that he had ruled Marchand out for precautionary reasons.
“He’s working on something,” Maurice said of Marchand, who has a team-leading 46 points (23 G, 23 A) this season. “We’ve gotten to the point where we don’t want to make the situation worse. We’re a little bit sensitive about injuries here right now. We’re doing our best to keep our players healthy.”
Starting the third period on a power play, the Panthers had a few shots on goal, but nothing more than Woll, who made 18 of 31 saves in the final 20 minutes.
Setting up the Panthers for a late comeback, Bobrovsky made another big stop on a breakaway, skating to pin the puck at the goal line to prevent former teammate Steven Lorenz from flying straight into the net.
Of the 23 shots Bobrovsky faced, NaturalStatTrick.com deemed seven of them high-danger.
“Bob is always great,” forward Noah Gregor said.
With the Panthers on the board, Verhaeghe dropped the puck from Woll with his glove and smashed it into the cage from a sharp angle to make it 3-1 at 11:38. The Toronto native currently has 10 points (5G, 5A) in 17 career games against his hometown team.
