William Nylander scored his second goal of the game at 1:53 of overtime and the Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the visiting Florida Panthers 5-4 on Tuesday night.
Nylander scored the game-winner, his 24th goal of the season, on a nifty effort after carrying the puck deep into Florida’s zone. Nylander tied the game with the only goal in the third period and added an assist on Auston Matthews’ power-play goal just before the second period ended.
Dryden Hunt and Alexander Kerfoot also scored for the Maple Leafs, who had lost their previous two games.
Mitchell Marner had two assists to extend his home point streak to a club-record 19 games.
Toronto played from behind much of the night as Matt Murray gave up four goals on eight shots in 21:41 of ice time. Ilya Samsonov replaced Murray early in the second period and stopped all 11 shots he faced.
Aleksander Barkov had a goal and an assist for the Panthers, who had won their two previous games. Carter Verhaeghe, Anton Lundell and Josh Mahura also scored goals for Florida.
Sergei Bobrovsky made 32 saves for Florida, including stoning Nylander on a penalty shot 34 seconds into the third period.
Verhaeghe opened the scoring with his 21st goal of the season at 1:52 on a 12-foot wrist shot after a Toronto turnover. Hunt answered with his third goal of the season 46 seconds later, tipping in Morgan Rielly’s shot.
Lundell scored his sixth goal of the season, a 10-foot shot while Florida was a man down, to give the Panthers a 2-1 lead. The Leafs answered again with a power-play goal from Kerfoot, seventh score of the season, at 15:10 of the first.
The Panthers again put Toronto a goal down when Mahura scored his fourth at 18:04 on a 50-foot shot from the left barrier.
Florida extended the lead to two when Barkov scored his 12th goal of the season at 1:40 of the second period on a 33-foot wrist shot during a power play. Samsonov replaced Murray after the goal.
Matthews scored his 22nd at 19:57 of the second during a power play, ultimately setting Nylander up for his heroics.
Nylander sent the game to overtime with a deflection off his helmet at 5:59 of the third.
–Field Level Media
