Sunrise, Florida - Brad Marchand scored on a skewed shot at 15:27 overtime, and the Florida Panthers beat Toronto Maple Leafs 5-4 in Game 3 Friday night to reduce the Eastern Conference semi-final deficit to 2-1.
Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, Carter Verhaeghe and Jonah Gadjovich scored Florida with 27 saves from Sergei Bobrovsky. Evan Rodrigues has two assists for the Panthers. They were 13-2 in the last 15 playoff overtime games.
John Tavares scored twice, and Matthew Knies and Morgan Rielly scored for Maple Leafs as well. Joseph Woll stopped 32 shots.
Game 4 will be sunrise on Sunday night.
Florida eliminated the 2-0 and 3-1 flaws, and it was nearly impossible for Toronto to do this season.
According to the numbers, it all fits maple leaves.
When they were leading after the first stage, they were 30-3-0, including the playoffs, the second best record in the league.
They were 38-8-2, the third best record in the league.
They hit only 11 leads throughout the season and didn't lead in the playoffs.
They led 44-3-1 in two or more goals.
Combined with Toronto, when he led 2-0 in Florida, Toronto won all 11 of the previous seven best series, discarding Games 1 and 2 with a 0-5 score in the series, while in the league, teams facing a 2-0 deficit have won only 2-0 deficit about 14% of the time.
But Marchand - Toronto's long-term playoff vengeance in the Boston era - scored the biggest goal of the Florida season, making all those numbers pointless.
Leafs scored two goals, Gustav Forsling's gloves led 3-1 on the way to overtake Bobrovsky, with Rielly's goal redirecting Seth Jones' leg to tie it with the remaining 9:04 in the third inning.
Nice scored 23 seconds in the game, leading 1-0 for the second time in the first minute of the series. Tavares scored 2-0 at 5:57, while the Panthers were in trouble.
Diving Barkov threw the puck online and saw it hit Florida on the Toronto stick to get Florida on the board--just Tavares scored again on the second time with a 3-1 Leaf lead.
Florida needs a break. It's coming.
Reinhart was considered a goal after Woll thought he had covered the hockey in front of the net. But after review, it was confirmed that the hockey had crossed the line. There was life in Florida, and about a minute later, the building rang again with Verhaeghe tied 3-3.
Gadjovich scored the game 4-3 in the second end, before Rielly listed it as midway midway in the third.