Well, that early jump from Auston Matthews and his Leafs? Yeah, it didn’t age too well. After kicking things off with back-to-back dubs in Round 2, Toronto suddenly hit a wall, aka the Florida Panthers, dropping two in a row and now finding the series tied up at 2-2. Just hours ago, it was Big Game Bob doing Bobrovsky things, swatting away 23 shots to shut the door on Toronto with a clean 2-0 win in Game 4 at the ever-loud Amerant Bank Arena. Carter Verhaeghe cashed in with a nasty one-timer off a slick feed from Matthew Tkachuk (who else?), lighting the lamp on Florida’s fourth power play of the first.
Joseph Woll stood tall with 35 saves for the Leafs, but the Panthers just kept coming, outshooting ‘em 29-12 through two frames. The final nail came courtesy of Sam Bennett, who snapped one home on a cheeky partial 2-on-1 after a messy turnover in the neutral zone, just waited out Woll like he was brunch reservations. From that point on, Florida clamped down hard, holding Toronto to just four more shots the rest of the game. And now, Auston Matthews steps up to defend the Leafs’ tough loss to the Panthers as his jaw-dropping playoff stats come to light.
Auston Matthews hit the post-game mic with some real talk after the Leafs’ rough tumble in Florida, and honestly, he didn’t sugarcoat a thing. It’s clear the guy knows they’ve got work to do, but he’s far from panicking. After all, they’re up against the reigning champs and it ain’t exactly a walk in the park.
“A couple days here at Reset. We knew it wasn’t gonna be easy. We’re playing the defending cup champs. They’re a good team. You know, both teams took care of home ice. So, you know, here we are. We just got to continue to push, clean up some things, you know, get better in different areas and, you know, going back on home ice, be excited about that.” Matthews dropped that with the kind of energy that says, ‘Yeah, we’ve been hit, but we’re not down.’
“We knew it wasn’t going to be easy. We’re playing the defending Cup champs.”
Auston Matthews on the Leafs’ Game 4 loss. pic.twitter.com/nCx6xGxvAQ
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) May 12, 2025
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