Ex-BC goalie Woll saves Maple Leafs
Former Boston College goaltender Joseph Woll stopped 24 shots in his first playoff start, Mitch Marner and William Nylander had the goals, and the Maple Leafs staved off elimination by beating the Panthers, 2-1, at Sunrise, Fla., in Game 4 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series Wednesday night.
Nylander was the beneficiary of an odd bounce for a powerplay score in the second period, Marner scored midway through the third, and Woll did the rest as he took the place of injured starter Ilya Samsonov.
Sam Reinhart scored for Florida, which got 23 saves from Sergei Bobrovsky. The Panthers still lead the series, 3-1, with Game 5 in Toronto on Friday night.
Woll, who turns 25 July 12, was bidding to become the youngest Toronto goalie to have a playoff shutout since Felix Potvin — then 23 — stopped 42 shots to beat Chicago, 3-0, May 9, 1995. He was 7:47 away from pulling it off.
Reinhart — who had the OT winner in Game 3 — took a quick pass from Matthew Tkachuk and found a way to just get the puck between Woll’s leg pads for a power-play score, cutting Toronto’s lead to 2-1.
Nylander is pronounced KNEE-lander, which seemed fitting on the opening goal.
Toronto went more than five full periods — 107 minutes and 46 seconds, to be exact, going back to late in the second period of Game 2 — without a power play until Florida’s Eetu Luostarinen got called for high-sticking the Leafs’ Michael Bunting early in the second period.
And they cashed in, thanks to the hockey gods.
Bunting tried dumping the puck around the net from the right-wing boards, only to have it bounce off the knee of referee Jon McIsaac as he tried to get out of the way. It skipped to the front of the net, where Nylander knocked it past Bobrovsky for a 1-0 Toronto lead.
It was the first goal of the series for Toronto’s big four players of Nylander, Auston Matthews, John Tavares, and Marner.
Stars rebounded
Joe Pavelski, Max Domi, and Miro Heiskanen refused to let the Stars have two straight dud performances.
“This team doesn’t have two bad games in a row,” Domi said. “We showed that tonight.”
Pavelski scored his sixth goal of the series as part of a fourgoal second period for Dallas and the Stars routed the Kraken, 6-3, at Seattle Tuesday night in Game 4 to even the Western Conference semifinal series.
After a pair of tight games in Dallas to open the series, Games 3 and 4 in Seattle were blowouts. The Kraken rolled to a 7-2 win in Game 3 and the Stars responded with their best performance of the series in a dominant Game 4 victory. Game 5 is Thursday night in Dallas.
“We weren’t ready to play in in Game 3,” said Heiskanen, who returned from a nasty facial cut on his left cheek that knocked him out of Game 3. “Tonight was whole different story and we had a real good effort at the beginning, got the goals, played well.”
Pavelski scored four goals in the series opener, added a fifth in Game 2, and gave the Stars a 4-0 lead midway through the second period of Game 4.
Pavelski’s goal came on a power play after Seattle and challenged for goaltender interference. The challenge failed and Pavelski made Seattle pay.
Jake Oettinger, the former Boston University star who was pulled after allowing five goals in Game 3, made key stops in the third and finished with 16 saves.