SUNRISE, Fla. – Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 23 pictures for his fifth profession playoff shutout, Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Bennett scored and the Florida Panthers beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 2-0 on Sunday evening in Sport 4 to even the Jap Convention semifinal collection.
Verhaeghe scored on an influence play within the first interval, Bennett added the insurance coverage rating with 7:50 left and Bobrovsky did the remainder. He’s the primary goalie with two shutouts this 12 months within the playoffs.
Joseph Woll stopped 35 pictures for the Maple Leafs, who took a 2-0 collection lead with a pair of residence wins and now return there for Sport 5 on Wednesday evening with the collection tied.
Verhaeghe’s aim got here on Florida’s fourth energy play of the primary interval. Matthew Tkachuk, alongside the left-wing boards, threaded a cross by way of the slot and previous two defenders onto the ready stick of Verhaeghe — who slammed a one-timer previous Woll.
It was a part of a spree of pictures early for Florida. The Panthers took 21 of the sport’s first 26 pictures on internet, merely controlling play for lengthy stretches and maintaining all of the motion in entrance of Woll. He held agency, again and again, maintaining Toronto in it.
Bennett stated sufficient.
He got here in from Woll’s left, with Verhaeghe on the opposite aspect of the slot, then waited for a passing lane. When none appeared, Bennett merely went to the entrance of the online, watched Woll commit, then pushed the puck into the online earlier than punching the air.
Florida has received 25 consecutive playoff video games — going again to Might 5, 2022 — when main after two intervals, matched Edmonton for essentially the most wins within the NHL over that span. The Oilers are 25-3 when main after two since that date.
Oliver Ekman-Larsson — a part of the Florida workforce that received the Stanley Cup final season — delivered a shot to the top and neck space of Panthers forward Evan Rodrigues about 5 minutes into within the third interval. It was initially referred to as a significant, then downgraded to a minor after overview.
The Maple Leafs not solely killed the penalty off however they even had the perfect probability of these two minutes when Matthew Knies skated in on a short-handed attempt. He missed the online.
Which may have been the final nice probability for Toronto.
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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
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