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If not for a stellar performance in goal from Joseph Woll, who kept the Leafs in a game in which they were badly outshot, outskated and outchanced, it’s possible the Leafs would have lost in an embarrassing blowout. As it was, the Panthers eked out a 2-0 win that didn’t do justice to the extent of their superiority.

Leafs coach Craig Berube wants his team to play a “north game.” It wasn’t in evidence on Sunday in the sunny south. Good thing for the Leafs that Game 5 is back in pc28����on Wednesday.

Then again, the way Berube spoke after Sunday’s loss, it’s hard to know what the coach was watching, of if his team left him wanting at all.

“In the end, I really liked our physicality and our compete out there,” Berube said. “I thought most guys were engaged. They were going good.”

Survey 1,000 Leaf-loving observers of Sunday’s game who aren’t blood relatives of the Core Four and it’s safe to say “going good” would not be a popular assessment. On a night when Toronto’s lack of discipline kept them short-handed for more than nine minutes, pc28����was outshot 37-21 and lost the high-danger chance battle at five-on-five by a count of 11-6, according to . Toronto’s hapless power play gave Florida higher-quality short-handed chances than the Leafs could muster with the man advantage.

The visitors looked less like the Berube Leafs that won Games 1 and 2 in resilient fashion and more like the playoff no-shows helmed by Sheldon Keefe.

Even team captain Auston Matthews, who has yet to score in nine career second-round playoff games, saw the concerning signs in his team’s performance.

“I thought we didn’t do a good enough job of helping our D and executing coming out of the zone, and (the Panthers) were able to kind of sustain offensive zone pressure throughout the game,” Matthews said. “I thought there was times where we were better, but I think just consistently, over the 60 minutes, they outworked us and outplayed us in that area.”

That area, and most of the other areas. No matter how you assessed Sunday’s performance, Games 3 and 4 amounted to a missed opportunity for the Leafs. The Panthers are the defending champions, and they’re to be respected. But let’s face it: As well as the home team played on Sunday — Florida’s most sustained display of championship-level intensity — they’ve looked like a diminished defending champion for the bulk of the series.

Matthew Tkachuk, the club’s heart and soul, has been at less than his best, still apparently slowed by a lower-body injury suffered at the 4 Nations Face-Off that kept him out of the final couple of months of the regular season. He looked like he’d rediscovered some of his swagger by the end of Game 4, when he was seen on camera jawing with William Nylander, among other Leafs.

Sergei Bobrovsky, a two-time Vezina Trophy winner, came into Sunday as the second round’s worst-performing goaltender as measured by ’s goals saved above expected. That pc28����couldn’t manage to pelt the 36-year-old netminder with more high-quality chances, especially early in Game 4, was inexcusable.

“We need to try and get the puck behind them a little bit more and create a little bit more tension in their zone, and just throw some junk at the net,” Leafs defenceman Brandon Carlo said.

With Toronto’s failure to seize their many chances to win Game 3 and with their lacklustre performance in Game 4, it’s possible the Leafs have helped to reinvigorate a weary reigning champ.

“That was more of the Panthers playoff hockey we’re used to,” Sam Bennett said.

The more generous take came from Matthews: “Both teams took care of home ice.” But it was the Panthers who brought palpable hunger to Sunday’s game. And the Leafs didn’t help themselves, giving Florida four chances on the power play before the first intermission.

Blame the refs, sure, but three of the four pc28����penalties were easy calls, including a high stick by Max Domi, boarding on Bobby McMann and a puck over the glass by Oliver Ekman-Larsson. A borderline hooking call on Matthew Knies, mind you, didn’t help.

“We don’t need to take those,” Berube said. “We’ll be smarter than that.”

Good pc28����penalty killing on the first three manpower shortages couldn’t stop the Panthers from cashing in on the fourth, with Carter Verhaeghe tapping one in on the backdoor to make it 1-0. If not for Woll, who thwarted Sam Reinhart on a couple of point-blank chances and was as sharp as he’s been all series, it could have been worse.

Penalties have a tendency of balancing out. But while the Leafs earned three power plays in the second period, they could not take advantage. Florida’s short-handed chances, particularly a Reinhart point-blanker that required a quick Woll glove, were better than anything the Leafs could muster with the man advantage.

Mind you, the Leafs had their short-handed moments. Matthew Knies had a mid-third-period breakaway with the Leafs a man down. He shot wide.

With the Panthers clinging to a 1-0 lead in the third period’s latter half, a neutral zone turnover by Nylander cued the rush on which Bennett scored the goal that made it 2-0. Bennett used a patient, controlled deke to let traffic pass and let Woll swim out of position before depositing the puck in the net. He looked like a player who has succeeded in the business of turning important playoff games in his team’s direction more than once. He has the Stanley Cup ring to prove it.

As for the Maple Leafs? They’ve still got plenty of time to show they’re acquiring the requisite skills for a long playoff run. Thankfully, for now, this bit of forgettable business in Florida is a done deal. Even the ever-positive Berube acknowledged the lineup may require a tweak before Wednesday.

“There’s guys that could do more for sure, and we’re going to need more out of them,” Berube said. “So we’ll figure that out, handle that … We’ll talk about (potential lineup changes) and look at a couple of options.”