On the final night of their three-game swing through Canada, the Florida Panthers were on the wrong side of a comeback.
The Panthers closed out a two-part, seven-game road trip Sunday with a 5-2 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first meeting of the season between the two Atlantic Division rivals. It was an unusually stagnant offensive performance for Florida and it cost the Panthers a second-period lead in Ontario.
Florida (44-15-6) took a 2-1 lead on the Maple Leafs with in the first two minutes of the second period, then didn’t score again for the final 38:33, while Toronto (41-19-5) stormed back with a pair of second-period power play goals, a third-period goal on a 2-on-1 and a last-second empty-net goal to hand the Panthers their most lopsided loss since February.
It also left them with their first loss since trade-deadline acquisitions Claude Giroux, Ben Chiarot and Brandon Hagg all joined the team last week. Florida won its first two games with the newcomers by rallying to beat the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday and the Ottawa Senators in a shootout on Saturday. It also ended a three-game road winning streak for the Panthers.
Florida, however, remains in sole possession of first place in the Eastern Conference and is six points ahead of everyone else in the Atlantic.
In those first two games, Giroux — the prize of the deadline — tallied nine shots and four assists, including one on the game-tying goal in the third period Saturday. On Sunday, the All-Star forward had just two shot attempts — and none on goal — and didn’t get on the score sheet in any manner.
For two periods, the Panthers and Maple Leafs did trade blows in front of a typically packed crowd at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, even if the high-quality chances were rare. The Maple Leafs went up 1-0 in the first period when star defenseman Morgan Rielly deflected a shot past goaltender Spencer Knight, and Florida hit back with two straight goals by defenseman Brandon Montour and left wing Ryan Lomberg to go ahead 2-1 with 18:33 left in the second.
After Toronto had seven of the first eight scoring chances, the Panthers had the next seven to take the lead.
The Maple Leafs, however, answered the Panthers’ two-goal response with one of their own. Toronto center John Tavares scored twice on the Maple Leafs’ league-best power play in the final 15 minutes of the second period to give Toronto a 3-2 lead heading to the third.
At this point, the game was an unlikely defensive struggle. Both the Panthers and Maple Leafs only had 32 shot attempts, and 20 shots on goal in the first two period. Toronto had a narrow 5-3 edge in high-danger chances and 16-13 edge in total scoring chances.
Florida, with the league’s best rush offense, only had one chance in transition and not a single odd-man rush through two periods. With both teams playing on the second night of back-to-back sets, neither played at quite the high pace they typically do and the Panthers, with the league’s highest scoring offense, suffered most, as the Maple Leafs had a clear edge in special teams.
Although Florida managed a push at the start of the third period, Toronto shut it down when Maple Leafs winger Ilya Mikheyev finished a 2-on-1 with 10:48 to go to give Toronto the first multi-goal lead of the game.
