With a thunderous opening period and a relentless finish, the Florida Panthers overwhelmed the Toronto Maple Leafs 6-1 on Sunday night, punching their ticket to the Eastern Conference Final for the third consecutive season.
Florida will face the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday night in Raleigh – a rematch of last year’s series that vaulted the Panthers into the Stanley Cup Final.
Defenseman Seth Jones hammered home a point shot to give Florida a 1-0 lead. The Panthers never looked back.
Anton Lundell followed to double the lead and Jonah Gadjovich buried a rebound less than three minutes later to make it 3-0. Toronto never found oxygen after that.
The Leafs finally got on the board in the third period when Max Domi scored to make it 3-1 and briefly give the home crowd life. But the spark didn’t last long.
Florida quickly snuffed out any comeback hopes. Eetu Luostarinen restored the three-goal lead just minutes later, and Sam Reinhart put the exclamation point on the night with a power-play goal to make it 5-1.
With less than 4 minutes to go, Panthers’ Brad Marchand scored an empty-netter to make it 6-1.
Florida now turns its attention to a showdown with Carolina, a team it swept last spring in a dramatic four-game series.
