Brad Marchand scored on a deflected shot at 15:27 of time beyond regulation and the Florida Panthers beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-4 on Friday night time to chop their deficit within the Japanese Convention semifinal collection to 2-1.
Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, Carter Verhaeghe and Jonah Gadjovich scored for Florida, which bought 27 saves from Sergei Bobrovsky. Evan Rodrigues had two assists for the Panthers. They’re 13-2 of their final 15 playoff time beyond regulation video games.
John Tavares scored twice, and Matthew Knies and Morgan Rielly additionally scored for the Maple Leafs. Joseph Woll stopped 32 pictures.
Sport 4 will likely be in Dawn on Sunday night time.
Florida erased deficits of 2-0 and 3-1, and that’s been nearly not possible to do towards Toronto this season.
By the numbers, it was all trying good for the Maple Leafs.
— They have been 30-3-0 when main after the primary interval, together with playoffs, the second-best document within the league.
— They have been 38-8-2, the league’s third-best document when scoring first.
— That they had blown solely 11 leads all season, none within the playoffs.
— They have been 44-3-1 in video games the place they led by two targets or extra.
Mix all that with Toronto having received all 11 of its earlier best-of-seven collection when taking a 2-0 lead at house, Florida being 0-5 in collection the place it dropped each Video games 1 and a couple of, and leaguewide, groups dealing with 0-2 deficits come again to win these collection solely about 14% of the time.
However Marchand — a longtime Toronto playoff nemesis from his days in Boston — bought the most important objective of Florida’s season, rendering all these numbers moot for now.
The Leafs bought two targets that deflected in off of Panthers defensemen: Tavares’ second objective nicked the glove of Gustav Forsling on its well beyond Bobrovsky for a 3-1 lead, and Rielly’s objective redirected off Seth Jones’ leg to tie it with 9:04 left within the third.
Knies scored 23 seconds into the sport, the second time Toronto had a 1-0 lead within the first minute of this collection. Tavares made it 2-0 at 5:57 and identical to that, the Panthers have been in bother.
A diving Barkov threw the puck on the night time and noticed it carom in off a Toronto keep on with get Florida on the board — just for Tavares to attain once more early within the second for a 3-1 Leafs lead.
Florida wanted a break. It got here.
Reinhart was credited with a objective after Woll thought he lined up the puck following a scrum in entrance of the web. However after overview, it was decided the puck had crossed the road. Florida had life, the constructing was loud once more and a few minute later, Verhaeghe tied it at 3-3.
Gadjovich made it 4-3 late within the second, earlier than Rielly tied it halfway via the third.
