SUNRISE, Fla. — The Florida Panthers trailed the Toronto Maple Leafs by four goals in the second period and the jokes wrote themselves: They had the Maple Leafs right where they wanted them.
Sam Reinhart certainly felt this way. With 8:08 left in the second, the star forward scored on a power play to start to make a near-blowout interesting. He punctuated the goal with a massive fist pump and shouted, Let’s go, with an expletive inserted in the middle. He could feel it because the Panthers always do: Another comeback was brewing in Sunrise and the 7-6 come-from-behind, overtime win might have been their most spectacular one yet.
The Maple Leafs ripped off a 5-0 scoring run in the first and second periods, and Florida answered with one of its own in the second and third. The Panthers’ comeback happened so fast they scored a go-ahead goal with 11:59 left and Toronto, playing its second game in as many days, still managed to fight back to tie the game with 3:54 remaining before All-Star left wing Jonathan Huberdeau won the game with 2:13 left in the five-minute overtime period.
It all mostly happened in a wildly eventful second period, when the Panthers and Maple Leafs combined for seven goals, 25 shots, 24 scoring chances, eight penalties, two goalie changes, and two power-play goals and two shorthanded goals — one of each for each team.
Florida and Toronto finished the first period tied 1-1, and the Maple Leafs were up 5-1 within the first 8:40 of the second.
By the end of the second period, Toronto’s lead was down to 5-4. Less than a minute after Reinhart started the run, defenseman Radko Gudas scored a shorthanded on a desparation shot from the blue line in transition. Before the end of the period, All-Star forward Claude Giroux scored his first goal as a Panther and All-Star left wing Jonathan Huberdeau finally tied up the game with a rebound goal on a power play with 17:15 remaining.
With 11:59 left, star center Aleksander Barkov finally put the Panthers back in the lead, scoring from the doorstep off an assist from Huberdeau from behind the net., but Maple Leafs center John Tavares forced overtime with his own power play goal in the final four minutes.
In overtime, Florida and Toronto traded dangerous chances for nearly three minutes of 3-on-3 action, until Barkov got a step on the Maple Leafs’ defense on an entry pass from star defenseman MacKenzie Weegar and teed up Huberdeau for the game-winning goal on a 2-on-1.
The comeback win was the Panthers’ 24th of the season and gives them a six-point lead on the Carolina Hurricanes for the top spot in the Eastern Conference and an eight-point lead on Toronto for first place in the Atlantic Division. With a dozen games to go, it would take a spectacular collapse for Florida to not win the Atlantic and the Panthers are just two points behind the Colorado Avalanche in the race for the Presidents’ Trophy. They’ve also won 8 of 9 with this win an important statement for a team without many victories against the league’s best lately.
Huberdeau, who set Florida’s single-season record for points Sunday, had two goals and three assists to become the franchise’s first 100-point scorer. Barkov, after scoring two goals in the final minute to cap the Panthers’ four-goal comeback against the New Jersey Devils on Saturday, assisted the game-winner, and added another goal and a assist. With two and an assist, Reinhart set new career-highs with 26 goals and 68 points.
In a battle of two of the best teams in the NHL, Florida outshot the Maple Leafs, 48-35, by leaning on their stars taking advantage of an opponent playing its second game in as many nights.
