The Toronto Maple Leafs of past seasons would have found moments or reasons to lose Game 2 of their second-round series against the Florida Panthers at Scotiabank Arena on Wednesday. They would have not been able to recover from a sluggish first period in which their top power play looked anemic, they may not have been able to recover from their long-time nemesis scoring 15 seconds into the second period, or surrendering a one-goal lead in the third period, but through two games, the Toronto Maple Leafs have been resilient and lead the series 2-0 after a 4-3 victory.
Toronto was opportunistic, and while they got contributions from core groupers William Nylander and Mitch Marner, they also had the support of secondary scoring sources. Max Pacioretty tied the game late in the first on a remarkable deflection on the power play and assisted on Nylander’s sixth goal of the playoffs. Max Domi gave Toronto their first lead late in the middle frame on a dish from Steven Lorentz, before Marner broke a 3-3 tie early in the third on a knuckler that pinged out the bar before going in past Sergei Bobrovsky.
While it took performances throughout the lineup for the Leafs to come back twice and hold a precarious one-goal lead in the third period to maintain home-ice advantage, the player with the most pressure on him was goalie Joseph Woll, who let in an early Aleksander Barkov power play goal, but improved as the game went along and made a big save on Mackie Samoskevich in the third to preserve the lead and notch his fifth career playoff victory.
“Joe just comes in with such a calming presence,” Marner said after the game. “His preparation before and during games, with his (experience), it’s so professional to see how he takes things in every day.”
It appears that the Leafs will be relying on Woll for a while at least, as head coach Craig Berube indicated on Thursday before the club headed to Florida for Game 3 that Anthony Stolarz will not be travelling with the team. Based on the normal time frame of concussion protocol, the earliest that Stolarz could be available is Game 5 next week, but that may be optimistic to believe that he could be ready to return that quickly.
