Maple Leafs score four in the second period, but fall 7-6 to Florida Panthers

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Three goals in 1 minute 15 seconds. Seven combined in the second period. One team charges ahead. The other charges back. A couple of records are set. Yes, the game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Florida Panthers was something on Tuesday night.

It was more like the NBA. You know, one team falls behind by 30 and then the outcome hinges on a three-pointer at the buzzer.

In this one, Jonathan Huberdeau scored with 2:13 remaining in overtime to give the Panthers a 7-6 win. The left wing scored twice and had three assists in the victory and in doing so became the first player in franchise history to reach 100 points in a single season. He ended the game with 102.

“It’s another milestone,” Huberdeau, who has played 661 games over 10 years in Florida, said. “It has been a fun year and it is going to be more fun.”

The victory improved the Panthers’ record to 49-15-6 record and gave them a club-record 104 points. They also moved eight ahead of second-place Toronto in the Atlantic Division standing.

For both teams, what a night.

After playing to a 1-1 tie over the first 20 minutes, they went wild.

“Helter-skelter” is what Florida coach Andrew Brunette called it.

First the Maple Leafs scored four in a row in the second to take what appeared to be a commanding lead. Then the Panthers responded with three in a row to revive the crowd at FLA Live Arena.

A little earlier those same fans sat stunned in their seats. Mitch Marner scored twice in 16 seconds to push Toronto ahead 3-1. Then 57 seconds later Colin Blackwell added another to chase Sergei Bobrovsky from Florida’s crease.

When Jake Muzzin made it 5-1 at 8:40 of the second in his first game back since he suffered a head injury on Feb. 21, it looked all but over. But these are the Panthers we are talking about. They are wildly exciting and crazy good.

Their 24 wins from behind this season are tied for the most in the league with the New York Rangers. So in rather short order, Sam Reinhar and Radko Gudas unloaded on Maple Leafs goalie Erik Kallgren. After Giroux scored, suddenly it was 5-4 and we were nearly back to where we started again.

And then we were there. Huberdeau scored on a power play early in the third and it was tied 5-5.

But that wasn’t quite it yet. The immensely talented centre Aleksander Barkov flipped a puck past Jack Campbell with 11:59 remaining and Florida had its first lead.

Got all that? I was there and I’m still not sure I do.

But there was more. John Tavares scored on a power play with 3:54 left and it was 6-6. That set up Huberdeau’s fantastic finish in extra time.

“It’s a fun game to play in and fun for the fans to watch, but we can’t do this in the playoffs,” Huberdeau said. “This has been happening a lot. We have to figure it out.”

Maple Leaf fans will see it that way, but it wasn’t really such a collapse. It was a thrilling comeback and an entertaining exhibition of hockey put on by two teams that both aspire to go deep in the postseason.

On Sunday, the Panthers became the first team in the league to clinch a berth in the 2022 Stanley Cup tournament. They have reached the playoffs in three straight campaigns for the first time in history and will try to win their first series since the 1996 Eastern Conference final against the Penguins.

In only its third year, Florida lost in the Stanley Cup finals to Patrick Roy and the Colorado Avalanche.

The Maple, Leafs, meanwhile, entered the evening with five victories in a row including one each over Florida, Boston and Tampa Bay. They still have to play each of them one more time before the regular season concludes on April 29.

Before the season started Sheldon Keefe pored over the team’s schedule. Back-to-back road games in April against two opponents jumped out.

“They have been like a flashing light all year,” the Toronto coach said.

His club sailed through the first nicely, drubbing the Lightning 6-2 in Tampa on Monday night.

Twenty four hours later the Maple Leafs were in Sunrise, Fla., to face the Panthers for the second time in nine days. They dispatched with them easily in the first meeting on March 27 at Scotiabank Arena but things were much different on Florida’s home ice.

Bobrovsky went into the game 33-6-3 with a .914 save percentage and seven successive wins but was forced to the bench after stopping just 10 of 14 shots. A night earlier, Toronto got a half-dozen on Andrei Vasilevskiy. They are not only the two best goalies in the division but among the two best in the league.

The loss may sting, but Toronto got three of a possible four points against two formidable opponents. It concludes a four-game trip in Dallas on Thursday and returns to Scotiabank Arena to meet the Canadiens on Saturday night.

A lot of players statistics got padded on Tuesday. Marner had two goals and two assists. Auston Matthews was held off the scoreboard in his quest to reach a club-record 55 goals but he had three assists. Muzzin, in his first game back, not only scored but had seven hits and blocked four shots.

For Florida, Barkov had a goal and three assists, Sam Reinhart had two and one, and Gudas had eight hits. On top of that, the Panthers got away with a buzzer-beater.

“It was a frenzied game,” Brunette said. “It was fun for fans and players, but not a lot of fun for me.

“I’m sure their coach is over there scratching his head.”

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly named the starting goalie.