It’s difficult to fully capture Game 1 in 10 points.

The Leafs walked away with a 5-4 win, a 1-0 series lead, a potentially injured starting goalie, and successfully overcame some adversity in what figures to be a long grind of a series.

William Nylander was a star in this game and finished with two goals and an assist in 18:42 of ice time. Matthews and Tavares played over 21 minutes each, Marner played a monstrous 24:15, and five Leafs forwards played under 12 minutes. The Leafs leaned on their big dogs in this one, and they generally fared well to snuff out the Panthers and protect their lead with an entering-the-game-cold Joseph Woll behind them.

On defense, Jake McCabe and Chris Tanev were exceptional, mixing in two points apiece along with their elite defending, including a goal by Tanev. The Leafs leaned heavily on four defensemen, with Simon Benoit and Brandon Carlo playing just 15 minutes each.

The big post-game story, unfortunately, will be the Anthony Stolarz debacle. Is he healthy enough to continue? Will the league ever suspend a player for an offense against the Leafs? Is Joseph Woll ready to step up if necessary? 

There was the drama. There was the expected physicality. It was higher scoring than expected. Ultimately, the Leafs took care of business in a wild Game 1. 

Your game in 10:

1.   The Leafs started this series exactly as we thought they’d play it: power on power. The Panthers declared the Aleksander Barkov line with Gustav Forsling and Seth Jones as their starting lineup. The Leafs countered with the Auston Matthews line and let it be known: we’re doing this best on best.

One question mark about the matchups was answered early when the Leafs coaching staff selected Jake McCabe and Chris Tanev to start, too. It’s a fair matchup to declare, as Sam Reinhart and Barkov are the Panthers’ two leading scorers this season.

On the second shift, the Leafs opened the scoring. The first line possessed the puck on the Panthers’ side of the ice, and when the puck cleared and both teams changed, McCabe skated over center and floated a puck in deep. Max Pacioretty came flying off the bench, recovered the puck, and cycled it back to the point with the Leafs changing. It just so happened to be William Nylander picking the puck up off the wall while skating downhill. Identifying traffic in front via John Tavares and a vulnerable Sergei Bobrovsky, Nylander ripped it five-hole.

Nylander has a two-game multi-goal-scoring streak going now and has scored in three straight games against the Panthers. What a start.

2.   The one matchup wrinkle from the Leafs happened on defense. Craig Berube went with the matchups we thought he would at forward: L1 vs. L1, L2 vs. L2, L3 vs. L3, and L4 vs. L4. On the blue line, they paired Morgan Rielly and Brandon Carlo with the Scott Laughton line and the Simon Benoit and Oliver Ekman-Larsson pair against the Sam Bennett line. It’s an interesting situation to monitor. Benoit and OEL are better against the forecheck than Rielly and Carlo, even though OEL plays on his off-side.

As the matchups started rolling over the boards, the Leafs were buzzing. The Laughton line generated a good shift and drew an icing against the Anton Lundell line. Max Domi then cleaned out Lundell on the draw and tipped a Tanev shot that made for a tricky save by Bobrovsky. By the first commercial break, shot attempts were 6-2 for the Leafs, who were absolutely flying.

The game then hit its first real (potential) inflection point when Domi was called for one of the worst penalties you’ll see in any level of hockey, let alone an NHL playoff game. Domi skated by Brad Marchand and got in his way after Marchand tried to hover around Pontus Holmberg following a whistle. I didn’t like the Domi penalty off the faceoff against Shane Pinto in the Ottawa series, but this was a truly awful call — called “cross-checking,” when there was barely any contact and Domi didn’t even have two hands on his stick. If you’re an NHL official, you have to understand that an early call like this will set the tone for the entire night and establish a standard. We will revisit that part later.

To the Leafs’ credit, they responded with a fantastic kill. The Panthers recorded one shot on net as the Leafs’ PK didn’t allow the power play to set up. Toronto’s neutral-zone kill was excellent, and the Panthers couldn’t get any clean entries rolling.

After the kill, McCabe hammered Dmitry Kulikov with a rock-solid hit. A few shifts later, Matthew Knies got a prime look in the slot, as the Leafs kept their momentum rolling.

3.   The Leafs parlayed their momentum into a second Nylander goal to double their lead.

Max Pacioretty played a good first playoff game in the Ottawa series, then struggled for two games before playing a big role in eliminating the Senators in his fourth appearance. The hope was that he had found his stride after a long layoff down the stretch. In this game, it was clear he has. He started this shift by planting Barkov on the boards; he then took a pass in stride from Nylander on a quick-up breakout, gained the zone, shielded the puck, and made a nice drop pass to OEL, who activated up the ice.

OEL made a really smart shot off the pad for a rebound (on purpose), which bounced right to Nylander, who started the play in the Leafs’ end. On a clean 1v1 against Bobrovsky, he made a nice play in tight to shuffle it backhand-forehand and flip the puck into the top shelf in tight on Bobrovsky. A high-end finish from the NHL’s second-leading goal scorer this season. 

4.    Up 2-0, with the team flying and the building bumping, the Leafs went to a power play with a chance to stretch the lead to three.

They created a few good looks; Nylander missed wide with Knies screening, and Marner threw a good point shot with traffic that caused trouble, but the concerns about the Panthers’ aggressive PK are real. The Leafs countered with shorter shifts for the top unit, as the second unit came on earlier than normal, and the Leafs took a too-many-men penalty. It simply cannot happen, and the Panthers made the Leafs pay.

As noted in this space earlier today, the Panthers’ strength on the power play is keeping it simple, and that’s what this goal was. It started with Matthews, in possession in the neutral zone, throwing a bad pass back to Tanev that he couldn’t receive cleanly. Tanev cleared it, but it didn’t make it deep; it only got to center, and the Panthers gained the zone cleanly (which they couldn’t accomplish on their first power play).

From there, the Panthers simply worked it to the point with traffic. Seth Jones, to his credit, took a nice shot through, and Anthony Stolarz didn’t have much of a chance. Suddenly, a game the Leafs were largely dominating sat at 2-1 on the scoreboard after a sequence that started with a Toronto power play. Unforced error by the Leafs.

5.   The 2-1 score didn’t even last 20 seconds. The Leafs clearly entered the series with a game plan to quick-strike the Panthers as much as possible. As noted in this space, the Panthers have conceded the most breakaways in the league over the past two seasons; they are ripe for the picking in this area of the game. They are aggressive up ice, and it usually leads to dominant possession play, but they are vulnerable if the opposition chips it by them when they press.

Following a scrum in front of the Toronto net, the Leafs came up with the puck, and Morgan Rielly immediately shot up the ice. Nylander saucered a pass, sending Rielly and Tavares down the ice on a 2v1 from the Leafs’ blue line. Niko Mikkola sold out on the pass — can’t really blame him, to be honest — and it didn’t remotely matter. Rielly read the defense clean and loaded up a wrister that he absolutely ripped by Bobrovsky.

Earlier in the season, Rielly scored an overtime winner against the Flyers on a 2v1 and a bar-down rip on “regular season” Connor Hellebuyck. He doesn’t own the big point shot, but when he is at or below the top of the circles, he has a great shot and can beat goalies clean. He did exactly that in this case, absolutely sniping past Bobrovsky.

Rielly now has the most playoff goals by a defenseman in Leafs history with 14 after his third of the current playoff run. He’s clearly far more comfortable activating up the ice now that he’s paired with Brandon Carlo.

6.   Entering into the second period up 3-1, I was curious if the Leafs would park the bus as they have most of the season (and in the first round), but on the third shift of the period, Calle Jarnkrok drew a penalty off a good third-line shift.

The Leafs responded with a bad power-play effort, with only one shot on net off the initial faceoff win. The Leafs’ power play was outworked, lacked urgency, and didn’t move the puck fast enough. This isn’t an Xs and Os issue; it is a go-to-work issue. Toronto’s power play went 0/5 in the game and took a penalty that the Panthers subsequently scored on.

The Leafs followed up this power play with a penalty of their own. They put together a really good penalty kill, as the Panthers couldn’t penetrate or set up. However, on the power play, Bennett tried a jam play at the net, stuck out his elbow, and clipped Stolarz in the head.

Earlier in the game, Stolarz took a rocket of a shot by Sam Reinhart off his mask, knocking his helmet off his head; this Bennett elbow was not the first head contact he received. He stayed in the game after the Reinhart shot, and he initially remained in the game after the Bennett knock, but during the next commercial break, he appeared to vomit on the bench, and he was pulled from the game for Joseph Woll. There are some reports since the end of the game that Stolarz left the game on a stretcher.

If this play were the handiwork of another player, I could maybe take the argument that it wasn’t malicious. But Sam Bennett has a history. He sucker punched Knies a few years ago and Marchand last season, causing both to miss time. Now, a goalie has been removed from the game, and who knows when he will return.

Ultimately, goalies are treated differently. If the league allows players to visibly extend their arms and make head contact with goalies, it is opening a huge can of worms from a precedent standpoint. It should be a suspension on principle, although again, the Reinhart shot likely comes into play. Of course, we’re most likely to hear soon that the league will do absolutely nothing about this.

7.   In between Stolarz getting clipped by Bennett and Woll entering the game, the Leafs extended their lead. Alec noted in our pre-game podcast that the Leafs are a much better faceoff team than the Panthers, and it could get them some offense in a tight five-on-five series. It did here.

Matthews won the draw to Knies, who passed it to McCabe on the point. McCabe fired it across the blue line to Tanev, who saw some traffic at the net forming with Knies and threw a pure knuckle puck to the net that bounced weird and fooled Bobrovsky.

It’s a weak goal, but faceoffs are something to keep an eye on throughout the series. The Leafs won 60 percent in the game and possess a big advantage here; they were the second-best faceoff team in the league this season, while the Panthers ranked 20th. When margins are so thin — as they will be in this series — any little advantage helps. It led to a big goal in this one.

8.   Joseph Woll made some solid saves in the second period after entering the game cold. Heading into the third period up 4-1 felt pretty good from the Leafs’ perspective, but then the Panthers scored a minute and a half in.

One of the biggest matchup challenges for the Leafs in this series centers around the Anton Lundell line. If they aren’t used as a top checking unit, they can also score, and they scored their first of two goals against the Leafs’ third line to get Florida back into this game.

This started as a 2v2 rush over the blue line, and the Leafs had numbers in place. But Calle Jarnkrok was tracking his man and appeared to believe he was handing him off to Scott Laughton, who was in front of the net alone (it wasn’t an unfair thought process). But Laughton was slow to track it and wasn’t even close to Luostarinen, which meant he couldn’t tie him up and instead was forced to defend the puck. The pass handcuffed Laughton and made it through, leading to a nice tip right in front of Woll and a 4-2 game.

It’s one of those goals where you couldn’t necessarily let Woll fully off the hook; it’s a tip in front, but it’s a saveable play. With a cold goalie, you live with it and move on.

9.    Three minutes later, the Panthers scored again. Again, it was third line on third line, but unlike the previous goal, Woll absolutely needed to come up with a save on this one. To the Panthers’ credit, they were generating zone time, and it was clear that the Leafs couldn’t park the bus for the full 20 minutes with a cold Woll in net. It wasn’t going to work.

The Panthers made it a one-goal game following a dump-in that Woll should have been able to stop behind the net but missed, leading to Panthers possession. Florida took a shot, recovered it, and worked it to the point, where Nate Schmidt made a fake-shot pass to draw in defenders and hit Uvis Balinskis skating down the wall with space. The Leafs cleared the net well on it and left the shot for Woll — something they’ve done all playoffs — but Woll simply got beat. Woll needs to save it; there is not much else to analyze here. It’s not an elite shooter, it’s not an elite shot, and Woll had a clean look at it.

To Craig Berube’s credit, he called a timeout and settled the team down. He didn’t wait for 4-4. He called it at 4-3, and it seemed to work. The Leafs started playing again. 

10.    In the next 10 minutes, the Leafs outshot the Panthers 7-4 and went on two breakaways. The first was a Max Domi breakaway try after a monster shift where he dropped Tkachuk, then shot out of a cannon up the ice; he tried to go glove side, but Bobrovsky read it (Domi was really good in this game, by the way).

The second was another Matthew Knies breakaway following a really good play on the wall by Mitch Marner; Marner slashed Schmidt’s stick on the initial battle before chipping it up to Knies, who walked in and went forehand, backhand, and lifted it into the top shelf. Earlier in the sequence, the Panthers created a good opportunity that led to an uncalled trip by McCabe on Reinhart, but you won’t hear me sympathize with the Panthers at this point.

On back-to-back breakaways, the Leafs tried going glove (and Nylander scored glove 1v1 with Bobrovsky). Knies admitted after the game that he was going glove the whole way. That’s something to watch.

This was a huge goal to give the Leafs some cushion, and it was especially important after the Panthers scored with under two minutes left in the game on a deflected shot. It was hard to lay any blame at Woll’s feet there.

At 5-4, Matthews and Marner were really effective defensively to close out the game, along with Carlo — who made some great plays to recover the puck — and the usual steadiness of McCabe and Tanev.

Matthews also missed an empty net to ice it. It didn’t matter. The Leafs gave the Panthers nothing in the final minute and closed out the win, including a big block by Marner and some really good defending at the top of the point in general by #16. He made it extremely difficult for the Panthers to get pucks through.

At the end of the game, Tkachuk tried some nonsense on Marner, who appeared to do well to avoid it. This is why we dedicated an entire pre-series article to the Panthers’ violence and physicality. They bend the rules constantly, are downright dirty, and regularly knock players out of playoff series. It will remain a huge storyline throughout.

Game Flow: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Heat Map: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Game Highlights w/ Joe Bowen & Jim Ralph

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