Maple Leafs bounce back with solid effort against Panthers, only to lose in OT


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SUNRISE, Fla. — The Maple Leafs got the point on Saturday night.

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It wasn’t for lack of effort that they didn’t get a second.

Two nights after their worst loss of the season, the Leafs gave the Florida Panthers a hard battle at FLA Live Arena before losing 3-2 in overtime.

Brandon Montour scored at 2:26 of the extra period, poking a Mason Marchment pass between the legs of Leafs goalie Jack Campbell.

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Florida won a franchise-record 13th game in a row. The Leafs, though they could not hold on to a 2-0 lead, were much better than they were in Tampa on Thursday, when they lost 8-1.

Auston Matthews returned to the Leafs lineup after missing three games with an undisclosed injury and led Toronto with seven shots on goal.

The Leafs lost Michael Bunting in the first period after the industrious winger was hit in the face by the puck. Bunting played just four shifts and less than three minutes before he was hurt.

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For the most part, William Nylander took Bunting’s spot on the top line with Matthews and Mitch Marner.

“These are really good opportunities for us to hone in our game and make sure that we’re firing on all cylinders,” Matthews said before the game, referring to the Leafs’ final four matches of the regular season. “The other night (in Tampa) wasn’t pretty, but you got to move past that. We got our (butts) kicked, so I’d like to think that we’re going to be very motivated to get back on track.

“These games are going to be difficult, but these are the exact games that I think we need leading up to the playoffs.”

Late in the third, Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky made a sharp shoulder save on Leafs captain John Tavares.

Jack Campbell was solid in the Leafs net, making 32 saves.

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“You can always take the positive and the negative,” Matthews said of getting a bit of a rest, thanks to his injury, with the playoffs around the corner.

“I don’t like to not play, it’s never fun sitting, never fun watching games when you wish you could be in there. Hopefully that little bit of rest was beneficial.”

Matthews was hurt against Ottawa on April 16, but did not come out of the game.

“Just an awkward little collision, nothing really too crazy,” Matthews said. “Put myself in a bit of an awkward spot that just kind of caught me.

“It’s something you have to manage moving forward. It’s something that I think I can work through.”

Whether Matthews plays on Sunday in Washington against the Capitals when the Leafs finish a back-to-back set remained to be seen.

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“Given the quick turnaround, the back to back and the travel, for any player that we might have that would be coming off of an injury, we would manage that,” Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said.

“We talked about the fact that we do play again (Sunday) he could take the day (off on Saturday). But he really wanted to play.”

With Matthews back, veteran Jason Spezza was a healthy scratch.

Florida scored two goals in the second period to tie the game 2-2 heading into the third.

Marchment got a step and blew past Nylander inside the Toronto blue line. Aleksander Barkov, trailing on the play, popped Marchment’s rebound past Campbell at 6:26.

During a power play, Claude Giroux’s shot from the point eluded a screened Campbell and brought the Panthers even at 14:54. That came just nine seconds after TJ Brodie starting serving a minor for hooking Jonathan Huberdeau.

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The Leafs’ best chance in the period came on a Matthews deflection that Bobrovsky slid across to stop.

Toronto had a 2-0 lead at the first intermission, a just reward for the hard work that the team didn’t bring in Tampa.

Marner scored his 35th goal at 3:25, firing a shot past Bobrovsky on a one-timer after the puck came off the end boards. It was also Marner’s 96th point of the season.

Defenseman Justin Holl scored for the first time in 25 games when he got a bit of luck with a shot from the point. Bobrovsky got a piece of the shot with his stick, but the puck bounced off the skate of Radko Gudas and into the net at 17:20.

Florida didn’t get its first shot on Campbell until the eight-minute mark, though defenseman MacKenzie Weegar hit the post not long after the opening faceoff.

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