Analysis | Joseph (Brick) Woll and the Maple Leafs shut down Panthers and bring series back home for Game 5

SUNRISE, FLA.—The Maple Leafs have lived to fight another day and they have Joseph (Brick) Woll to thank.

It’s too early to make any Ken Dryden comparisons, but the Leafs rookie goalie backstopped his veteran teammates to their first win of the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The Core Four are no longer scoreless in the second round, with William Nylander and Mitch Marner beating Sergei Bobrovsky as the Leafs beat the Panthers 2-1 Wednesday night, forcing Game 5 on Friday at Scotiabank Arena.

It was the best game the team has put together since the second game of the first round, a 7-2 drubbing of the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Leafs were a more composed group, playing more in control and they got the goaltending they needed from Woll, who was pressed into service because of an undisclosed upper-body injury to Ilya Samsonov.

The Panthers are an opportunistic team that feeds off their opposition’s mistakes, and the Leafs didn’t make many. When they did, Woll was there to stop the puck, becoming the first Leafs rookie goalie to record a playoff win since Felix Potvin in 1993. He stopped 24 of 25 shots.

Dryden, by the way, played six regular-season games for the Canadiens before taking over the net and winning the Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe Trophy in 1971. Woll played seven games for the Leafs this year.

Sam Reinhart scored a power-play goal late in the third, as the Panthers desperately tried to get back in the game and put the Leafs away.

It is the fourth time since this run of post-season appearances began 2017 that the Leafs staved off elimination in a playoff round. They’ve typically been the team with the advantage, but they beat Boston twice in 2018 to rally from a 3-1 deficit to force a Game 7, and they were down 2-1 to Columbus in the best-of-five qualifying round playoff in the COVID-shortened season in 2020, winning Game 4 to send that series the distance.

Given the circumstances they found themselves in heading into Wednesday’s game, the result was the best they could hope for. They stayed alive to force a Game 5.

Players around the league always speak of the fourth win in a best-of-seven being the hardest, the most elusive. Certainly, anyone who has followed the Leafs the past few years is well aware of that. So this was the first step of reminding the Panthers of that, of planting that seed of doubt. And though the Panthers have done well on the road, they’ll will head to Toronto knowing they’ve missed their first chance to eliminate the Leafs.

It’s the first to four wins, and neither team has gotten there yet.

The one thing the Leafs were talking about in the days and hours leading up to puck drop was staying in the moment.

“Thinking about past experiences and what I could have done differently or whatever, just creates negativity,” veteran defenceman Luke Schenn said. “What I’ve learned is I’m not very good at controlling the future, Obviously, you think about the future, but if you think about the future you’re not going to be where you need to be in the present.”

Coach Sheldon Keefe had suggested that all the pressure was on Florida, that when the Leafs lost Game 3, the hockey world had given them up for dead. In his mind, the team could play without the weight of expectations the rest of the way.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a free and easy game when your season’s on the line,” defenceman Morgan Rielly said. “I don’t know what the outside world is saying. All we’re focused on is our group. And having the belief and the confidence in each other that we can go out there and play and win one game and take it from there. We’re going to play like we have our backs up against the wall and we want to compete.”

They did.

As far as first periods go, when the Leafs had the right to be nervous given their season was on the line, they did all right. It ended 0-0, with Woll making a few big saves, notably on a slapshot from Brandon Montour and a drive to the net by Sam Bennett. Justin Holl and Alex Kerfoot blocked some shots, the Leafs got their stick in the way of Florida passes better than they have, and they did a better job of playing in the Florida end. The Panthers ended with a 7-6 shots advantage, built on a power play on what appeared to be a phantom cross-check call on Holl as Matthew Tkachuk backed into his stick.

The notion that none of the so-called Cour Four could go four games without at least one of them scoring was absurd. They had gone three after never having gone two in a row in the regular season. The drought ended on a lucky bounce.

The Leafs were on their first power play, and it wasn’t going well. But they gained the zone and a Michael Bunting pass meant to cycle behind Bobrovsky was redirected off an official right to Nylander, catching both he and the goalie by surprise. Nylander got the better of it. Nylander’s backhand hit the post, then caromed off Bobrovsky, changed direction again and went in at 3:27.

From there, the Leafs seemed more in control, more like themselves. A 1-0 lead wasn’t much after 40 minutes, but it was a lead, the first time they’d held a lead going into the third period against the Panthers.

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