The fight for first place is a grind.
Just ask the Florida Panthers, who won the Atlantic Division last year by a point over Boston and used it as a springboard to the Stanley Cup.
It was experience they drew on Wednesday against the hot Maple Leafs, who were threatening to win five straight and open a five-point lead in the division. Summoning their silver lining, the Cats ended their own four-game losing streak with an early blitz and wore Toronto down during a 5-1 final in Sunrise, Fla.
Brushing off an opening minute Toronto power play, the Panthers scored two a minute apart soon after and added a mid-game short-handed marker to force the Leafs to play catch-up all night. After compiling a 7-1 record without Auston Matthews and a few other top six forwards, the Leafs missed those snipers at 5-on-5.
Compounding their injury woes, winger Bobby McMann didn’t finish Wednesday’s match with a lower-body injury, putting even more pressure on John Tavares, Mitch Marner and William Nylander.
Two of the three Leafs who received their Stanley Cup rings from their Florida days were victimized on the early goals.
After Toronto controlled two deep draws during an opening-minute Matthew Tkachuk penalty and couldn’t score, young Nikita Grebenkin was in the box for similar over-aggression when Sasha Barkov one-timed it past Anthony Stolarz. Fifty seconds later, Oliver Ekman-Larsson was among the Leafs tied up when Mackie Samoskevich fired from the slot to make it the two earliest goals against Toronto this season and the first time Stolarz has surrendered two in the first.
To his credit, Grebenkin wasn’t overwhelmed by his first taste of in-game adversity as he, Fraser Minten and Alex Nylander generated some offence with Minten dinging the post. But Sergei Bobrovsky, rebounding after giving up 10 goals on his past 49 shots, slammed the door against a team featuring his former understudy in Stolarz.
In the middle period, the clubs exchanged unconverted power plays again, but then Evan Rodrigues’s turned out very eventful. A weak entry by Toronto ended up in another Sam Reinhart shorty, adding to his overall league lead of 17 goals, but Tavares and Marner stayed out for the duration and it paid off. With Tavares, who drew the Rodrigues call, spitting out blood from a high stick off the faceoff, he and Grebenkin helped work the puck to Marner, though the goal was judged unassisted.
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Three third period penalties, including a double-minor high-stick to William Nylander, sealed Toronto’s fate, Carter Verhaeghe scoring on the man advantage and assisted on Sam Bennett’s empty netter.
Panthers coach Paul Maurice, holding himself responsible as much as his players for the late November slide, got his desired result after a vocal practice on Tuesday, but it was really a matter of time before the Cats snapped out of it.
Wednesday would’ve been a great time for Nick Robertson to end his scoreless skid, but it stretched to 12 games. Bobrovsky got a glove on his backhander during a 2-on-1 with William Nylander.
The Leafs have two days off before facing the Tampa Bay Lightning to end the trip.
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