FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA.—There were at least a couple of ways to look at the Maple Leafs’ 5-4 overtime loss in Game 3 of their second-round series with the Florida Panthers.
You could spin it as a blown chance to bury the reigning Stanley Cup champs deep in a 3-0 series hole. Handing a team as accomplished as Florida the gift of renewed life is never optimal, especially in a game in which the Leafs carved out two separate two-goal leads. The Panthers are known around here as the Comeback Cats for a reason. It’s not an identity any opponent is wise to perpetuate, if they can help it.
But NHL precedent had good news for the Leafs. The Panthers were only the 11th team in the past 40 years to orchestrate a multi-goal comeback to avoid a 3-0 series deficit, according to NHL research. The previous 10 teams who pulled off such a Game 3 rally went a collective 2-8 in the series in question.
In other words, while it might make sense to see such a furious rally as a dramatic turning point, history suggests such comebacks are more often one-off blips. That makes sense. There’s usually a reason a team requires an improbable comeback to avoid falling into a 3-0 hole: Their opponent is really good.
Brad Marchand, whose 37th birthday will coincide with Sunday’s Game 4 here in South Florida, said as much in the aftermath of scoring Friday’s overtime winner. It was Marchand’s 14th career playoff game-winning goal, most among active players. So the man knows his way around a playoff series.
Marchand said the Leafs had “that killer instinct” but his overtime goal gave the Panthers life
Marchand paid respect to the way the Leafs came to play Friday and said Game 3’s result will only matter if the Panthers follow it up in Game 4.
“They have that killer instinct right now,” Marchand said of the Leafs.
That’s high praise. Not that the Leafs didn’t spend Saturday answering questions of their own.
For one: How many goals do the Leafs need to feel safe with a lead? Speaking at their beachfront hotel here on Saturday, more than one player acknowledged that the visitors took their foot off the gas during Friday’s second period, when a 3-1 lead turned into a 4-3 deficit.
“We kind of gripped the stick a little bit too tight when we get the lead there,” forward Matthew Knies said. “I think we’ve just got to keep our pressure up.”
For another: How many second-round playoff games will Toronto’s best player require to score a goal? Game 3 was the eighth second-round game of Auston Matthews’ career, all of them against the Panthers. He has yet to register a goal.
Matthews, the league’s highest-paid player, hasn’t been prolific in the post-season’s first round, either, relative to his historic regular-season production. Heading into Saturday, he was leading the Stanley Cup playoffs in one notable statistical category: missing the net. He was second in shots on goal, and a distant 54th in goals (two).
“Yeah, he needs to hit the net. He’s trying to hit the net; he’s not trying to miss the net,” said pc28coach Craig Berube. “So I’m not going to really elaborate on that too much.”
Teammates have lauded Matthews, who scored a career-low 33 goals during an injury-plagued regular season, for his 200-foot prowess. The Leafs have outscored the Panthers 4-1 at five-on-five when Matthews is on the ice against Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov.
The six-foot-two winger remade his game this year, when injuries and the salary cap didn’t get
“He’s playing all over the ice extremely well, and as a teammate that’s what you notice first and foremost,” said Max Pacioretty, the 36-year-old who also has two playoff goals. “For us in that room, it’s not about looking at the stat sheet, the goal column. It’s what you do all over the ice.”
The Panthers, of course, have their own scoring problems. For all the talk of the power of their push, Marchand’s overtime winner banked off Morgan Rielly and the Panthers scored their first two goals Friday without shooting it in the net. The first, credited to Barkov, was a Rielly own goal. The second, credited to Sam Reinhart, was pushed across the goal-line by a pileup of net-front bodies. Reinhart, who scored 57 goals a couple of seasons ago, has three goals for the post-season.
Panthers coach Paul Maurice likened Reinhart to Matthews.
“It’s inevitable for both players. They’re both going to score,” Maurice said.
What’s actually inevitable is that the puck will drop Sunday night. By that point, Berube can hope Friday’s disappointment will have faded and the Leafs will arrive with a replenished supply of the killer instinct of which Marchand speaks.
“After (Game 3), everybody’s upset, obviously. You can really let it go the other way, or you can grab it, fix it, make some adjustments,” Berube said. “We knew this was going to be a long series … And we have an opportunity to go into (Game 4) and get a split (in Florida).”
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