Florida Panthers fall into 2-0...

The Florida Panthers are headed back to the Sunshine State in a dark hole.

Mitchell Marner scored the game-winning goal for the Toronto Maple Leafs 17 seconds after the Panthers tied the score early in the third period to seal a 4-3 victory. The Panthers trail the second-round Stanley Cup Playoffs series 2-0 after dropping both games on the road and are in a must-win situation when they play Game 3 in Sunrise on May 9.

”It’s one day at a time,” Florida's Brad Marchand said. “You can’t get too high, you can’t get too low. We’re OK in here. We have a lot of belief in our group and in our experience. Obviously, they’re fighting for their lives. They came to play in this round, and we see that, but these series can change on a dime and it’s all about that next one. We’re living for tomorrow and that’s how we’re going to prepare.”

Aleksander Barkov opened the scoring with a quick wrist shot from the top of the face-off circle on the power play 10:58 into the game. Max Pacioretty tied things up with a deflection on a Toronto power play with 1:41 to go in the first period.

Marchand gave Florida the lead back 15 seconds into the second period, burying a backhand shot from the slot off of a feed from Anton Lundell. William Nylander tied it up with a quick goal off the rush 4:03 later. Max Domi gave the Maple Leafs the lead back with 2:51 to go in the second period, beating Sergei Bobrovsky on an odd-man rush off of a feed from Steven Lorentz.

Anton Lundell tied the game 5:33 into the third period by tapping home a cross-ice feed from Aaron Ekblad in his first game back from a two-game suspension. Marner then quickly gave the Maple Leafs the lead back with a shot from the point that beat Bobrovsky through traffic.

Here are three takeaways from Florida’s Game 2 loss to Toronto:

Panthers uncharacteristically burned off the rush, again

Florida’s rush defense problems from Game 1 leaked into Game 2 — and it has been a problem in this series.

The Panthers watched a 2-1 second-period lead flip on its head after giving up two quick goals off the rush. On the tying goal, Niko Mikkola was late coming back and Nylander beat him to the front of the net to tap home a feed from Pacioretty. On the go-ahead goal, Lorentz blew right through Florida’s neutral-zone set-up down the middle of the ice to create the rush chance and set up Domi.

Florida has gone away from its strong gap game that helped slow down the Tampa Bay Lightning in Round 1, and it has cost them so far.

“They do a good job of stretching out the game and we’re all about pressure and being above it, so it’s just important we realize when guys are behind us,” Ekblad said. “The Domis and the Nylanders of the world are constantly stretching out the game, so it’s an important part.”

Lack of discipline finally caught up with Florida

The Panthers killed off the first seven Toronto power plays to start the series — including two in the first 8:39 of Game 2 — but the Panthers bit off more than they could chew when Dmitry Kulikov took a delay of game penalty (his second of the night) 10:53 into the first period.

It was Toronto’s second unit that ended up breaking the ice — a Pacioretty deflection of a Morgan Reilly shot — but this Maple Leafs team is too skilled to give that many chances. It wore Florida down from a strong start to the first period and it gave Toronto an opening to jump back into the game.

Defending Stanley Cup champions find themselves in a rare spot

In their run to the 2024 Stanley Cup, the Panthers did not trail a series by multiple games. Their last two-game deficit was when they trailed the Vegas Golden Knights 2-0 in the 2023 Stanley Cup Final, and they dropped that series 4-1.

Florida has made a multi-game comeback before, however. The Panthers came back from a 3-1 series deficit to the Boston Bruins last year. Now, they return home to see if they can turn around this series.

“That’s our mentality,” Ekblad said. “Get home, get our crowd behind us and put together a good home game.”