{"id":502530,"date":"2026-02-27T06:59:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T06:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/502530\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T06:59:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T06:59:12","slug":"panthers-score-3-in-1st-period-hold-off-maple-leafs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/502530\/","title":{"rendered":"Panthers score 3 in 1st period, hold off Maple Leafs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bobrovsky made 11 saves in the second period to keep it 3-0. With 1:39 left, he stretched out at the right post to stop Nylander with his left pad on drive to net, then got back into position to stop a Simon Benoit<\/a>\u00a0shot from the left circle three seconds later.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe came out strong, scoring three goals, and it was a big first period for us. Then we played our game,\u201d Bobrovsky said. \u201cThe guys did a great job in front of me, allowed me to see the puck. Great box-outs, great sticks. The little details. They did great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bobrovsky\u2019s shutout bid ended 47 seconds into the third period when Tavares cut it to 3-1 on the power play. Tavares\u2019 pass attempt down low deflected off the skate of Florida defenseman Gustav Forsling<\/a>\u00a0and went between the skates of Bobrovsky.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t handle their pressure well, and that\u2019s obviously what they do,\u201d Tavares said. \u201cWe knew there would be a lot of tight plays. They pressure the walls and are very aggressive. Execution through that was obviously poor to start the night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mackie Samoskevich<\/a> had a goal overturned for the Panthers at 9:05 after the Maple Leafs challenged for offside.<\/p>\n

Marchand pushed the lead to 4-1 by scoring into an empty net at 16:51, and Matthew Tkachuk<\/a>\u00a0added an empty-net goal at 18:08 for the 5-1 final.<\/p>\n

NOTES: The Panthers honored their seven medal winners from the Olympics during the game: Tkachuk (Team USA, which won gold); Marchand, Sam Bennett<\/a> and Sam Reinhart<\/a>\u00a0(Team Canada); and Lundell, Eetu Luostarinen<\/a> and Niko Mikkola<\/a>\u00a0(Team Finland, which won bronze). They held a special pregame ceremony that included Tkachuk and Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews<\/a>, who was the U.S. Olympic captain. Florida general manager Bill Zito and equipment manager Teddy Richards, who were on the Team USA staff, dropped the ceremonial puck to the two forwards. \u2026 Marchand has 27 goals and is tied with Jaromir Jagr<\/a>\u00a0(2015-16) for the most in a season by a Florida player age 37 or older. \u2026 Matthews extended his assist streak to five games and matched the longest run of his career. \u2026 Tavares scored his 79th power-play goal with Toronto, tying Wendel Clark<\/a> for the fifth most in franchise history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bobrovsky made 11 saves in the second period to keep it 3-0. With 1:39 left, he stretched out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,3302],"class_list":["post-502530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}