The Florida Panthers know it won’t be easy finishing off the Toronto Maple Leafs.
After all, Florida went 4-5 in elimination games last season en route to winning the Stanley Cup.
The Panthers will get their first opportunity to knock out the Maple Leafs when they meet in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference second-round series on Friday in Sunrise, Fla.
The Panthers have won three in a row to seize a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series, most recently blowing out the Maple Leafs 6-1 in Toronto on Wednesday night.
“I’m not a big believer in momentum,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said. “The series is closer than you think.”
The Panthers have had 17 different players score this postseason, the most through 10 games since the Los Angeles Kings also had 17 in 1993.
“Those are the fun stories for our room when (A.J.) Greer gets one, (Jonah) Gadjovich has one,” Maurice said. “Because they work hard and they don’t get on the magazines, they’re not in front of it, but it’s special on the bench when those guys score.”
Florida has also been getting the best out of goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, especially in the past two games, when he has combined to allow just one goal.
“Countless times, time and time again, he makes those big stops for us,” Panthers forward Sam Reinhart said. “At this time of year, you need those timely stops.”
Overall, Bobrovsky has a 7-3 mark in 10 playoff starts this spring with a 2.46 goals-against average and .899 save percentage, comparable to his regular-season marks of 2.44 and .906.
“I think Sergei is always available to get into a groove,” Maurice said. “His preparation doesn’t change; he has no idea about his stats. I think recently, and it was true in the latter half of the Tampa (Bay) series (in the first round), the guys in front of him are playing a game he understands, that he has history with this year.”
Bobrovsky has managed to stonewall Toronto’s best scorer, Auston Matthews, holding him without a goal in the past five games and without a point in the past two.
Matthews wants to keep all the negativity in the past.
“The only thing we can do is regroup and reset and go out and we have to win a game to keep our season alive,” Matthews said. “There’s confidence in this group, of course. We’ve been able to bounce back all year and it’s no different now.”
Before Wednesday, Toronto had not been defeated by five goals or more since a 9-3 loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Dec. 21, 2023.
The Maple Leafs bounced back from that disaster to beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 4-1 two days later, an effort they hope to repeat on Friday.
“I thought (Game 5) was really the first night we didn’t reply well or play our game,” Maple Leafs forward Mitch Marner said. “When you do that against a team like that over there, they are going to make you pay, and that’s what they did.”
Toronto coach Craig Berube said responsibility for the blowout loss in Game 5 is shared by everybody, himself included.
“There were mistakes, a lot of mistakes,” he said. “Mistakes happen in games, but it’s the way they happened (in Game 5) that’s disappointing more than anything.”
Maple Leafs goalie Anthony Stolarz, who sustained an upper-body injury in Game 1 and has missed the past four games, skated for about 20 minutes on Thursday morning but will not accompany the team to Florida.
