The Florida Panthers had little to nothing going offensively and ended up getting blanked 2-0 by Joseph Woll and the Toronto Maple Leafs in a utter slog of a Game 6 at Amerant Bank Arena.
Florida’s failure to close out the Maple Leafs sends the series back to the so-called center of the hockey universe for a decisive Game 7 on Sunday night.
After a scoreless, and rather uneventful forty minutes, that saw Panthers do little to nothing offensively in the opening frame (2 shots) and control the majority of play in the second, it was the Cats who blinked first, giving the Maple Leafs the break they needed.
Aaron Ekblad misplayed a pass from Gustav Forsling, turning what should’ve been a routine zone exit into the eventual game-winner for the Buds.
Mitch Marner collected the gift, curled out of the Florida zone to make sure his team was onside and then slipped a pass to a fresh Auston Matthews, who skated into the left circle and beat Sergei Bobrovsky along the ice.
A hooking call on Brandon Carlo 2:29 later gave the Panthers a much-needed lifeline, but the ensuing power play was completely dreadful and failed to produce even a shot attempt. It was just that kind of night…
Toronto added the insurance goal with 5:43 remaining. Max Domi’s soft outlet pass got by Sam Bennett and sent Bobby McMann away down the left side. Nate Schmidt, who triggered the breakout by sending the puck behind the Toronto net when no one was on the other side, was late getting back, allowing McMann to find Max Pacioretty open in front for the pretty backhand redirection.
Credit to the Maple Leafs, who ended up beating Florida at their own game and blocked 31 shots, but the Panthers were pretty awful offensively. They went 0-for-4 on the power play, which got progressively worse with each opportunity, constantly missed shots high or wide from start to finish and settled for too many hope plays. There was little to no effort at getting the puck to net and making Woll uncomfortable.
A very frustrating loss as the Cats had 46:19 to open the scoring and couldn’t do it. With the way they had Toronto bottled up again, holding them to a mere 17 shots, just one goal might’ve done it. Instead, it was the Maple Leafs, who took advantage of a couple of third period miscues, allowing them to bounce back from a disastrous performance in Game 5.
Rakes & Bags
- It took him 11 games, but Auston Matthews finally got his first postseason goal against the Panthers and it was a huge one. Matthews matched Carter Verhaeghe with a game-high four shots and was named First Star for his game-winner.
- Second Star Joseph Woll made 22 saves, too many of them were routine, to post the first playoff shutout of his career.
- Jesper Boqvist filled in for Evan Rodrigues again and led the Cats with eight hits. This time, however, he had no impact offensively, failing to register a shot on goal.
- In addition to Boqvist, three other Florida forwards were held with a shot during the tilt. They were Anton Lundell, Brad Marchand and Tomas Nosek.
- Aleksander Barkov won ten of 19 draws, but Toronto led in that department once again, winning 61.4% of the game’s faceoffs.
- In piece of good news from last night, the Charlotte Checkers beat the Hershey Bears 3-2 in Game 1 of their Division Final series. John Leonard scored the game-winning shorthanded goal with 8:02 remaining in the third period.
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