Zeros across board for Maple Leafs as roaring Panthers tie series at 2-2

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Joseph Woll’s playoff inexperience is now the least of the Maple Leafs’ concerns.

While he did his part to try to keep Toronto ahead in this series with 35 saves on Sunday, the Florida Panthers, rounding into Stanley Cup-champion form, had the jump in just about every area in winning a war of attrition in Game 4.

Woll kept it close, but a 2-0 loss knotted the best-of-seven series after Toronto had taken a two-game lead. The Leafs took the game’s first four penalties at Amerant Bank Arena and had to play catch-up most of the night when not looking out for oncoming Panthers checks. Sam Bennett clinched it in the third period after the Panthers transitioned when intercepting a William Nylander pass.

There was no sustained offence for the Leafs, who are already getting little from captain Auston Matthews with only three goals in his past 20 playoff games, shooting wide on most looks he does get. Other snipers have also been blunted. When they had high-danger opportunities, Matthew Knies shot high on a third-period short-handed breakaway and Nylander was turned away a couple of times by Sergei Bobrovsky.

After giving up 13 goals in the first three games of the series, Bobrovsky was locked in. Coming off eight overtime saves in Game 3, he made 23 more for his fifth playoff shutout.

After an extra day off, the series resumes Wednesday in Toronto.

The Panthers became the first NHL team in these playoffs to get four first-period power plays. Max Domi, who has taken some over-aggressive penalties in the playoffs, began the Leafs’ penalty-box parade when he just accidentally clipped Matthew Tkachuk with one hand as he was regaining balance.

Bobby McMann was overzealous crunching Carter Verhaeghe into the boards and Knies was called for a hack, but the unforced error was Oliver Ekman-Larsson, trying to kill the Knies minor, with no one around and dumping a puck over the glass.

The Panthers were able to get set up just before their brief 5-on-3 expired, with Aleksander Barkov’s feed to a wide-open Verhaeghe, putting Florida up 1-0.

Of course, anyone who doesn’t kill penalties for the Leafs was getting rusty by the end of those first 20 minutes and it took Nylander a while to get into the game. He had a couple of nice rushes, but was part of a dysfunctional first-unit power play when Toronto finally got its own three chances.

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Sam Reinhart led a determined penalty-kill for the Panthers that generated a couple of short-handed attempts. Fifth forward Mitch Marner had to scramble back a couple of times and was sore at the officials for missing an early Dmitry Kulikov elbow to his head.

Despite drawing two of the calls against Florida and having another good night on faceoffs, Matthews missed a few more shots. Knies’ breakaway came with Ekman-Larsson in the box a second time for  burying an unsuspecting Evan Rodrigues, which was initially called a major but retracted.

Rielly found Matthews across the zone in the first period down low to Bobrovsky’s left, but the Russian goalie took away the short-side corner. Matthews is on the cusp of 40 shots against Florida without a goal in two playoff series.

The Leafs have not lost a series in which they led 2-0 since 1995’s opening round against Chicago or a second round series in that position since 1987 versus Detroit.

Woll made 11 mostly difficult saves before Verhaeghe beat him, a strong response with a weak go-ahead regulation goal hanging over him from Game 3. Mother’s Day saw Shelley Woll come in from Missouri to cheer on her son.

Lhornby@postmedia.com 

X: @sunhornby