The Florida Panthers offensive malaise continued in Wednesday night’s key 3-2 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Arena in the penultimate meeting between the two bitter Atlantic Division rivals.
Missing Aleksander Barkov and Nico Sturm for this one, the Cats subbed in spare parts Tomas Nosek and Jonah Gadjovich and got to the dressing room in a scoreless tie after the first twenty minutes.
The Panthers would cash in on Chris Tanev’s high-sticking minor when Sam Bennett crossed to Sam Reinhart, who dropped to Gustav Forsling. Forsling hammered a one-timer past Anthony Stolarz for his tenth goal of the season at the 1:03 mark.
Red-hot John Tavares knotted the score by redirecting William Nylander’s pass in from the top of the crease at the 11:31 mark. Tavares has goals in six of Toronto’s last seven games.
Mitch Marner notched the go-ahead goal after Auston Matthews fired a shot on Sergei Bobrovksy and then collected the puck after Matthew Knies took a whack at it and fed the crafty winger in the right circle and he snapped it home with 9:10 remaining in regulation.
After taking a pass from Jake McCabe, Marner would find Knies open behind Nate Schmidt and he took it to the net and slipped a backhand off the post, then Bobrovksy’s back leg and in to complete the breakaway with Niko Mikkola in hot pursuit at 15:09.
That Knies goal turned out to be huge as Sam Reinhart would snipe his former teammate Stolarz, who was screened by Anton Lundell and a couple of Buds, from the high slot after taking a pass from rookie Mackie Samoskevich with 3:38 left on the clock. Seth Jones drew the secondary assist on Florida’s second power-play goal of the night.
The Panthers pulled Bobrovsky, but could not come up with the equalizer. No surprise there as the Cats are having a devil of a time getting to three goals in a given game.
Given the state of the roster, the Panthers gave a good effort, but it’s hard to win in this league when you can’t score more than two goals. Florida’s odds of claiming the Atlantic Divison took a huge hit, plunging to seven percent after the regulation defeat. The toothless Cats will get a couple of days off before facing the Ottawa Senators on Saturday afternoon.
Rakes & Bags
- After tasting defeat in the first two meetings, Anthony Stolarz got the win against his former team this time. Stolarz finished the tilt with 29 saves to help Toronto officially clinch a playoff berth.
- Sam Reinhart is up to 78 points after delivering his 15th mulitpoint game of the season. In addition to setting one up and scoring, Reinhart had three shots on goal and two hits.
- While the Panthers kept Auston Matthews from lighting the lamp, the superstar hit the 40-assist plateau for the third time in his career with his helper on Mitch Marner’s goal.
- He didn’t figure in the scoring, but Anton Lundell matched Bobby McMann with a game-high five shots on goal and won a team-high eleven face-offs.
- Sergei Bobrovksy stopped 23 of 26 shots during the game, which was his 750th NHL appearance.
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