Nylander has 2 goals and an assist
as Maple Leafs beat Panthers 5-4 in Game 1 of 2nd round series
[May 06, 2025]
TORONTO (AP) — William Nylander got the Toronto Maple Leafs
off to a fast start in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Nylander scored twice in the first period before adding an assist as
Toronto built a big lead before holding on to beat the Florida
Panthers 5-4 on Monday night in the series opener.
Matthew Knies and Chris Tanev each had a goal and an assist, and
Morgan Rielly also scored for the Maple Leafs. Max Pacioretty and
Jake McCabe each had two assists.
“We’ve been in tight games throughout the season,” Nylander said.
“We dug into that and tried to bear down.”
Anthony Stolars stopped eight of the nine shots he faced before
leaving in the second period after he took an elbow to the head from
Panthers forward Sam Bennett, who wasn’t penalized on the play. The
Maple Leafs said the 31-year-old was being evaluated, but provided
no further update.
“Elbow to the head,” Toronto coach Craig Berube said. “Clear as day.
... I get it, they miss calls. But it’s clearly a penalty.”
Joseph Woll stopped 17 shots in relief.
Seth Jones, Eetu Luostarinen, Uvis Balinskis and Sam Bennett scored
for the Panthers, and Brad Marchand and Carter Verhaeghe each had
two assists. Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 24 shots.
Florida beat Toronto in five games in the second round in the 2023
playoffs on the way to reaching the Stanley Cup Final. The Panthers
went one step further last year when they won the Cup for the first
time in franchise history.
Game 2 is Wednesday back at Scotiabank Arena, before shifting to
South Florida for two games.
Toronto opened the scoring just 33 seconds after puck drop when
Nylander beat Bobrovsky through the five-hole from a tight angle for
his fourth goal of the playoffs.
The Maple Leafs, who beat Ottawa in six games in the first round to
register just the second series win for the Original Six franchise
in more than two decades, went up 2-0 with 7:09 left in the first
when Nylander scooped up a rebound before deking Bobrovsky to the
ice and roofing his second of the period.
“He came out and was feeling it,” Rielly said of the slick winger.
“That helps set the tone.”
Jones got the Panthers on the board with a shot from the point
through traffic on a power play with 3:03 remaining for his second
of the postseason.
Toronto restored its two-goal lead just 19 seconds later when
Nylander sent Rielly off to the races on a 2-on-1 with John Tavares.
The defenseman and longest serving member of the current roster
looked Bobrovsky off before firing past the goalie’s blocker for his
third of the postseason.
“Obviously it wasn’t a great start by us,” Panthers forward
Aleksander Barkov said. “We knew they were going to come hard and
strong.”
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Toronto Maple Leafs forward Matthew Knies (23) scores against
Florida Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, left, during during
the third period of Game 1 in an NHL hockey second-round playoff
series in Toronto, Monday, May 5, 2025. (Frank Gunn/The Canadian
Press via AP)
Florida, which beat the Tampa Bay Lightning in five
games to advance, got a man advantage in the second that saw Stolarz
make a couple of stops, but Bennett caught him with a sneaky elbow
to the back of the head.
Toronto made it 4-1 at 7:50 when Tanev’s knuckling shot from
distance fooled Bobrovsky for his first.
Stolarz, who backed up Bobrovsky on the way to Florida’s Cup win a
year ago, was seen on television vomiting by the bench a few minutes
later before getting replaced by Woll.
Nylander had a chance to complete the first playoff hat trick of his
career on a shot that knocked the stick out of Bobrovsky’s hand but
the puck stayed out as the Maple Leafs headed to the locker room up
three.
Luostarinen cut the deficit back to two on a redirection 1:41 into
the third, and Balinskis then made it 4-3 at 4:30 after a Panthers
push inside a suddenly tense building.
“We didn’t look like ourselves,” Florida head coach Paul Maurice
said of his team’s opening period. “And then (we) righted it in the
second and after that had a pretty good push in the third.”
Toronto failed to connect on two power plays later in third before
Bobrovsky denied Max Domi on a break.
Knies made it 5-3 with 6 minutes left in regulation with a move to
the backhand on another breakaway.
Bennett got his team back within one with 1:55 left in regulation on
a pinballed shot off a Toronto stick, but Woll and the Maple Leafs
held the fort late to secure an early lead in the series.
“That was nice for us,” Nylander said. “But we’re just focused on
next game now.”
The Panthers were without defenseman Aaron Ekblad, who finished off
a two-game suspension for his headshot on Tampa Bay forward Brandon
Hagel in the opening round.
The Maple Leafs have three players from the Panthers’ championship
team — Stolarz, defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Steven Lorentz.
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