Game 3 was about as chaotic as you could have predicted considering the circumstances. With the Toronto Maple Leafs taking a pair of one-goal games at home to open the series, it would have been foolish not to predict a strong pushback from the Florida Panthers. And if it wasn’t more or less a guarantee from the start, it was carved into stone when the Leafs took a 3-1 lead.
Florida is one of those teams that will thrive as the temperature of the game rises. Its entire run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2022-23 was a Cinderella story that started with barely squeaking into the playoffs and going down 3-1 in the first round to a Boston Bruins team that set records thanks to how strong their regular season was. Point is, every game against them from here on out will be a bigger grind than the last, and the Leafs took them to the edge despite a tough loss in Game 3.
Joseph Woll struggled early on in the game, paving the way for a Panthers comeback after the Leafs were up 3-1 and found themselves down 4-3. Morgan Rielly, who ironically enough had an own goal in the first period off of Aleksander Barkov’s stick, scored off an equally flukey bounce to tie the Game at 4. The teams traded chances for the better part of overtime before the Panthers, fittingly enough, scored on another flukey bounce. And who else but Brad Marchand?
Brad Marchand ends it in overtime pic.twitter.com/h1ATkvoFPK
— Omar (@TicTacTOmar) May 10, 2025
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If you’re a Leafs fan, it’s probably hard to feel too upset about the result. Sure, it will leave a bad taste in your mouth and probably make falling asleep a little more difficult, but in the end, they were never going to sweep the Panthers. Call that a loser’s mentality, if you will, but head coach Craig Berube said it nearly verbatim after they closed out the first round over the Ottawa Senators; ‘We don’t expect any series to be short. They’ll all possibly go seven games.’
And that’s exactly the mindset that’s helped the Leafs string together some real confidence through this playoff run. Take it day by day, recognize how close you were, and bring it even harder the next game. If they can find a way to take Game 4 in Florida on Sunday, they’ll return home with a chance to take it in 5. And if they lose, they just have to win two of three.
This is playoff hockey at its peak, and it continues in 48 hours.
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