Florida wins it in overtime.

This is how it happened:

First Period

Mitch Marner came to play with a scoring chance in the first few seconds.

Leafs take a penalty in the first two minutes, and the crowd boos heartily as Eetu Luostarinen tries to show blood. It stays two minutes and the torches and pitchforks are hastily put away.

Woll is down and out right away on the Florida power play in an extremely alarming manner, but the puck stays out.

The power play looked terrible beyond the first few seconds, but then this happened:

1-0 Florida

I will confess to some level of frustration that the Leafs play perimeter passing games while Sergei Bobrovsky has no stick for an extended period.

The Leafs get their power play as Aaron Ekblad goes off for knocking down Sam Lafferty.

Auston Matthews goes for the big boomer on the power play (twice) but no dice.

Sam Bennett sends John Tavares to the ice. Head on swivel, blah, blah.

Leafs get another power play as the "we take lots of penalties" Panthers seem to be back. Radko Gudas on TJ Brodie.

Panthers content to just defend as they very ably keep the Leafs to the outside, hence the large number of long bombs trying to get through traffic.

Carter Verhaeghe makes it 2-0.

The weak-sounding Go Leafs Go chant is making me sad.

Second Period

So, uh, that's two slips back down the mountain, making the climb a lot harder.

Craig Simpson has run out of clichés and I think he's just reading the dictionary now.

The Sunrise Network is also positioning themselves to cover the Panthers in the next round, and fair enough – the show goes on for them no matter what.

No one wants to hear this, but I'll say it anyway. The Leafs are doubling up on the Panthers in Expected Goals in all-situations. This is all they can do. Get the puck, keep the puck, do smart things with the puck, get more chances than the other team.

Goal! Goal! We have a Blue Goal!

Joe Woll gets the puck way out in play, and eventually Morgan Rielly puts it in off a leg maybe.

2-1 Florida

Michael Bunting celebrates with a couple of hits on Gudas, and the crowd is going to make him their king.

Staal goes down on a puck to the side of his head, and a scoring play is blown dead. Morgan Rielly is a bit miffed.

Leafs struggle with some icings and difficulty exiting the zone.

And then they give up a scoring chance because they have too many men on the ice, and no one can touch the puck until they fix it.

Scoooooooooooooooooores. No, please tell me that's a goal. Please.

Did that go in for Mo?

I think it's going to be no because the call on the ice was no.

KHL-length review, though.

The crowd is reacting to a replay that shows it in. It's in. It's in. But that might be after the whistle.

No goal. They're saying the puck crossed the line after the whistle, dragged in by Bobrovsky as he was getting up. The crowd is raging, and there's debris on the ice.

For the record, the call on the ice was no because no one ever saw it cross the line. And no video shows that either. You can't infer it's a goal even though the probability is very high it crossed the line at some point.

The Leafs need to say to themselves that they can score on this guy, they can do it.

Well, that was a tense five minutes of gametime, worse than all the Tampa overtimes combined.

Official, there was no whistle (I had the sound off, so don't ask me) but the ref definitely called the play dead, I saw that:

And yes, SN showed a front angle that appears to show the puck over the line, but isn't enough because of the angle to call that a goal and be sure it's fully over the line. They also explained on SN why the continuation rule does not apply.

Shrug. The puck was not in view most of the time. Play the game in front of you, not behind you.

Third Period

Keep climbing.

Clear interference hit on Rielly goes uncalled. I am shocked this happened in the third period of a one-goal game in the playoffs.

Seven minutes left, and I sure hope you weren't looking for a play-by-play of this desperate period.

Yeeeeeeeeeees.

Mr. Nylander.

Tie Game.

I'm not saying I made this happen by playing Staying Alive which ended just as this goal was scored. But I'm not, not saying it.

Quite the elbow he throws on Spezza there.

Woll getting it done in the final minutes of regulation.

Overtime

Gah, those are my thoughts heading in.

I got nothing much to say here until this is over. Well, except this: win or lose, give all you've got.

Wow. Brodie gets a delay of game penalty for a puck that goes into the bench. Ouch.

"Exciting to watch," says Craig Simpson in the voice you'd use to hypnotize someone.

Penalty killed.

Bunting righteously angry on a race to the icing that Bobrovsky made a move on the puck. He... lost the argument, if you can imagine. Gio giving the ref the gears hard over who they're saying has to go out on the ice. So is Mo. So is Keefe. And now that everyone is rested, we start playing again.

And that's the end. Florida scores.

Game CoverageMaple Leafs Playoffs