Panthers Lose 4-1 to Maple Leafs, Fall to Last Place in Eastern Conference

SUNRISE, Fla. — The Toronto Maple Leafs and Florida Panthers met at Amerant Bank Arena for their usual December regular season matchup on Tuesday night.

Toronto, who entered Thursday’s contest dead last in the Eastern Conference, defeated Florida 4-1.

Joseph Woll stopped 26 of 27 shots faced and the Leafs improved to 12-11-3 on the season.

Sergei Bobrovsky gave up three goals on 29 shots and the Panthers fell to 12-12-1 at the 25 game mark of their campaign.

“Things are not going our way at the moment, but we have a good group of guys” Bobrovsky said. “We have a good team. We have good coaches. So, we believe in each other.”

For the past five years, these sides have been two of the “big dogs” in the Atlantic Division, with the Leafs winning the division title last regular season, while the Panthers took down Toronto in their second-round playoff series last season en route to a second straight Stanley Cup championship.

So it was more than surprising to see these consistent contenders enter Tuesday night’s game at the bottom of the Eastern Conference (Florida 15th place, Toronto last in 16th).

Toronto jumped out to a two-goal lead early in the first period. Troy Stecher scored his first goal of the season, beating Bobrovsky with a wrist shot from the point 5:24 into the game. Dakota Joshua doubled the Leafs’ lead with his fourth goal of the season 7:54 into the first.

The Panthers had their fair share of offensive chances early in the game, but they couldn’t get a puck past Woll, who stopped the first 16 shots he faced.

On the other end of the ice, Florida looked sluggish for the first 35 minutes of Tuesday’s contest.

They were second to the jump on loose pucks. Looked slow on the back-check through the neutral zone. Struggled to set up a solid defensive foundation in their own zone. A third unanswered Toronto goal likely would have set the course for a runaway game for the visitors.

But a penalty from Aaron Ekblad with less than six minutes to play in the second period led to the Panthers getting back into the contest.

While shorthanded for the second time of the evening, Sam Reinhart scored his 14th goal of the season with 5:17 left in the middle frame to cut the deficit to one.

After Reinhart buried his first short-handed goal of the season, Florida woke up.

I liked our first period but you’re down two,” Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said. “I didn’t love our second, [but] great effort by effort by Lundy and Reino to get us back into that.”

In the final five minutes of the second, feet started to move more, the physicality they lacked from the start was all of a sudden there. The ice seemed like it was beginning to tilt — but the final intermission came too soon for the Panthers.

Toronto extended their lead in the third after Scott Laughton scored his first of the season with 7:42 to play in regulation.

John Tavares also scored an empty net goal with nine seconds to play for his 13th of the season.

Toronto have won two straight games and three of their past four. Florida has lost three straight games and four of their past five.

“In these situations just [staying] with it is the most important thing,” Maurice said. But then we got to get better. We got to get some higher-end performances out of guys.

“They’re playing as hard as they can, the puck’s not as friendly as it used to be, there’s tension on the stick. That’s normal and you see that when you lose a few in a row.”

NEXT UP 

Florida will be back on home ice Thursday night against the Nashville Predators. The Panthers last win was an 8-3 thrashing over a week ago in Nashville. Puck drop for the rematch will be at 7 p.m. ET.