SUNRISE, Fla. — With one final breakaway chance in overtime Monday, the Florida Panthers missed out on clinching their spot in the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs.
Their playoff fortunes, though, are still in their own hands after rallying to force overtime before losing the Toronto Maple Leafs, 2-1, in Sunrise.
Star forward John Tavares scored with 21.3 seconds left in the five-minute, 3-on-3 extra session to stun the Panthers and force them to sweat out at least 24 more hours to find out of they’ll make the postseason.
Florida still maintains control of the top wild card, one point ahead of the Islanders and two ahead of the Penguins, and can guarantee a spot in the Stanley Cup playoffs by beating the Hurricanes in the regular-season finale Thursday.
The clinching scenarios are now simple for the Panthers: They’ll get into the Cup playoffs if they win their regular-season finale, or New York or Pittsburgh lose once more. The Islanders finish their regular season Wednesday against the Canadiens in New York, and the Penguins have two games left, Tuesday against the Blackhawks in Pittsbugh and Thursday against the Blue Jackets in Columbus.
Florida could also sneak its way into the playoffs with an overtime or shootout loss Thursday, as long as the Islanders also go to overtime in their finale. New York lost 5-2 to the Capitals in Washington on Monday to keep the Panthers in the top wild card spot.
Florida came tantalizingly close to removing any drama Monday. The Panthers were more than doubling up the Maple Leafs in shots at the second intermission, and yet they trailed 1-0 after superstar center Auston Matthews tipped a shot and just barely got it to trickle past goaltender Alex Lyon.
About halfway through the second period, Florida was finally rewarded for its barrage of shots and chances, when star defenseman Brandon Montour took a feed from left wing Carter Verhaeghe in the slot and zipped a game-tying goal past Toronto goaltender Ilya Samsonov with 10:24 left in regulation.
Lyon made 23 saves on 25 shots, but had his — and Florida’s season-long — six-game winning streak snapped because Samsonov stopped 45 of 46, including all four he saw in overtime.
The crowd of 18,521 at FLA Live Arena chanted Lyon’s last name as he warmed up for overtime and then again after he stopped back-to-back 1-on-1 shots in the middle of the extra session. The 30-year old goalie — who only had 31 games of NHL experience before taking over in place goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, who missed four straight games with an illness — nearly delivered his team another unlikely win, until the Panthers pressed up a bit too far to chase a game-winning goal and Tavares got a breakaway Lyon couldn’t stop.
This loss was more about the missed chances on the other end of the ice, though. Florida went 0 of 2 on the power play — and failed to capitalize on one less than a minute after Matthews’ go-ahead goal — and Samsonov came less than 11 minutes away from a shutout despite facing 30 scoring chances and 17 high-danger chances.
The Panthers were expected to have 3.9 goals based on their shots and chances, according to NaturalStatTrick.com. Instead, they barely scraped out one and now have to wait to see whether their season will come down to its final day later this week.
