Leafs, Panthers return to Toronto battered, bruised and even in series

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Oliver Ekman-Larsson crunched Evan Rodrigues. Dmitry Kulikov elbowed Mitch Marner. Simon Benoit flattened Sam Reinhart. At game’s end Max Domi took a run at Aleksander Barkov and was called for boarding. After the clock ran out, Brad Marchand exchanged punches with Bobby McMann.

Game 4 of the Maple Leafs-Florida Panthers playoff series had all the action of a UFC match, even though it took place on ice. The series is now tied 2-2, with Game 5 on Wednesday at Scotiabank Arena. Expect more of the same physicality.

After the final buzzer, Matthew Tkachuk and William Nylander hung over the boards and exchanged salvos. Tkachuk emphasized his with a wink and perhaps a warning for Nylander not to skate with his head down in Game 5.

“It’s just talk,” Nylander said following his team’s 2-0 defeat. “That’s what he does.”

Mostly Nylander is right. Tkachuk is a lug who stirs up trouble, backs off as it swirls around him and then takes on the look of an altar boy.

Fists fly but usually not his.

“It’s normal,” Craig Berube, the Toronto head coach, said at the team’s hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Monday before it boarded a flight back home. “We expected it and we are fine with it. We’re physical. I thought we were the more physical team [Sunday] night.”

When told this, his Panthers’ counterpart Paul Maurice, deadpanned.

“Okay,” Maurice said evenly. “I am having a mellow day today. I’m happy we won. That will be the extent of the joy I feel.”

Asked what he liked about his team’s game, Maurice quipped, “We didn’t get scored on in the first 35 seconds. That was a nice change for us.”

The Maple Leafs travelled to South Florida last week with a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series and returned home with it even.

They imploded in Game 4 especially, which wasted an outstanding performance by Joseph Woll in the visitors’ net. He had 35 saves and kept the score closer than it should have been.

The problem was that Sergei Bobrovsky, Florida’s outstanding goalie, found his form at the other end with a 23-save shutout. If Playoff Bob is back after a couple of earlier iffy performances, consider it a huge development.

“I think consistently over the 60 minutes they outworked us and outplayed us,” Auston Matthews, Toronto’s captain, said late Sunday. “We have a couple of days to reset. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy. They are the defending cup champs.”

The Panthers charged out to a 3-0 lead in the Stanley Cup final last year but won in seven games after Edmonton made an improbable comeback.

Florida’s defence was suffocating on Sunday, leaving little air for Matthews, especially. He has yet to score in this series and has just three goals over the last 20 playoff games.

“It’s not easy to score goals in the playoffs,” Berube said in defence of his star centre. “I am not overly worried about it. A big goal is coming. Who knows when?”

Well, it had best be in Game 5, 6 or 7 or the Maple Leafs could find themselves bounced from the postseason once again.

At the same time that Matthews’s goals have dried up, Toronto’s other bona fide ace has also gone cold. Mitch Marner failed to register a single shot in the two losses.

You can’t score if you don’t shoot.

“Sometimes your top guys look to get too good of a chance,” Berube reasoned. “There are times we can put more pucks on the net.

“I think Mitch could be a little more direct in that area. I get what he is trying to do. He is trying to upgrade his chance. He is a passer first but we need to shoot.”

The NHL fined Domi US$5,000 on Monday for his illegal hit on Barkov, which started a scrum. Three 10-minute misconducts were handed out by the refs for the row that occurred after the game had concluded.

For his part, Berube didn’t think too much about that hit which crushed Barkov into the boards.

“To me, the Kulikov hit on Marner was 10 times worse,” Berube said.

Game 5 is almost nigh. It was hot in Sunrise, and it’s getting hotter now on the ice.