Panthers beat Maple Leafs in overtime to keep series hopes alive

Jordan McPherson, Miami Herald on May 9, 2025

Published in Hockey

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SUNRISE, Fla. — The Florida Panthers have life.

Brad Marchand scored the game-winning goal with 4:33 left in overtime as the Panthers beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 5-4, on Friday in Game 3 of their second-round Stanley Cup playoffs series at Amerant Bank Arena

The Panthers trail the best-of-7 series 2-1, with Game 4 at 7:30 p.m. Sunday in Sunrise.

The game went to overtime after Toronto tied the game with 9:04 left in regulation after Morgan Rielly’s shot that was initially saved by Sergei Bobrovsky bounced off Florida defenseman Seth Jones’ right knee and into the net.

Before Rielly’s game-tying goal for Toronto, Sam Reinhart, Carter Verhaeghe and Jonah Gadjovich scored Florida’s second-period goals to turn a 3-1 deficit into a 4-3 lead and help spark a Panthers team that looked sluggish in the series opener on Monday and failed to sustain momentum in Game 2 on Wednesday to put them in an early hole in the series.

And the three goals included a little bit of everything.

Reinhart’s goal came following video review was needed to determine if the puck had fully crossed the goal line after Toronto defenseman Brandon Carlo appeared to make a stop. Florida was down 3-2 with 15:47 left in the second period.

Verhaeghe then tied the game 64 seconds later when he popped a shot into a nearly wide-open net after Sam Bennett drew goaltender Joseph Woll out of position on a two-on-one rush, making it 3-3 with 14:43 left in the middle frame.

And then Gadjovich, playing in his first game of the postseason after coach Paul Maurice changed his entire fourth line, gave Florida its first lead of the game with 4:53 left in the frame after deflecting in a Tomas Nosek shot from the high slot.

Aleksander Barkov scored in the first period for the Panthers after the Maple Leafs jumped out to an early 2-0 lead, a tally that helped spark Florida the rest of the game after the team looked flat in the opening six minutes. John Tavares scored twice for Toronto, while Matthew Knies opened scoring for the Maple Leafs 23 seconds into the game.