The Toronto Maple Leafs were defeated by the Florida Panthers 3-2 in overtime at home on Wednesday night, keeping them at 97 points with eight games left to go in the regular season. The Leafs magic number slowly creeped down to nine with the overtime loss. Nine points gained by the Leafs or lost by the Lightning would clinch home ice advantage in the first round for Toronto for the fourth time in a row in the Matthews Era.

Zach Aston-Reese and Auston Matthews scored for Toronto in the loss, with ZAR tying the game for the buds in the second period and Matthews giving the Leafs the lead in the third for a time. Calle Järnkrok also thought he had scored about a minute after ZAR's goal in the second period, but his centre, Matthews, was offside on the play. Auston did make up for it with a goal of his own.

Florida scored in the first and last minute of the game with Anton Lundell and Sam Reinhart scoring to send the game to overtime. Brandon Montour scored the overtime winner, assisted by Barkov who was invisible for pretty much all of the game until then. And not to make this all about Matthews, but the goal came second after Matthews had a breakaway in overtime that Alex Lyon stopped. My AHL brain remembers Alex Lyon, but credit to him he made 38 saves on 40 shots. Ilya Samsonov allowed three on 29 at the other end.

The Goals and Standout Moments

This was funny. No one touched Willy and it shouldn't have been a penalty. But the ref called something so he couldn't go back on it. The refs were definitely looking for a makeup call during the power play.

Liljegren joining the rush and nearly scoring from in front of the net.

Giordano saved a goal in the final two minutes of the game, but it cost him a penalty. That penalty inevitably turned into the goal that tied it from Reinhart.

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