The Toronto Maple Leafs are now facing elimination after an embarrassing showing in front of their home fans at ScotiaBank Arena, Wednesday.
In what some analysts called a "must-win game" for the Leafs, Toronto fell to Florida 6-1 in a disastrous Game 5, allowing the defending champions to score six consecutive goals before finally responding in garbage time.
Florida now has a 3-2 lead in the series and can move on to the Eastern Conference Finals with a win at Amerant Bank Arena on Friday. Since Toronto opened the series with two straight wins, they've lost three straight and have been outscored 13 to 5.
The Leafs looked poised to take an early lead 8:34 into the first period when William Nylander stole a puck at the blue line and raced in on Sergei Bobrovsky on a breakaway. Bobrovsky made a big save with his left pad, and things deteriorated from there for Toronto. Aaron Ekblad scored 1:15 later after an Auston Matthews turnover to Aleksander Barkov behind the net.
The Panthers poured it on in the second period, scoring three different times and feasting on the Leafs' mistakes. Dmitry Kulikov beat Joseph Woll with a shot after Scott Laughton deflected the puck over the Leafs goaltender's glove. Jesper Boqvist made it 3-0 after a no-look backhand pass by Mitch Marner was stolen by Gustav Forsling in the neutral zone. Niko Mikkola later made it 4-0.
They were booed off the ice by their fans.
AJ Greer and Sam Bennett added goals in the third period to make it 6-0. Woll allowed five goals on 25 shots before being pulled in favor of Matt Murray.
Things did get chippy late. Ekblad, Brad Marchand, and Max Domi all received 10-minute misconducts and were effectively tossed for their roles in scrums.
The Leafs, who haven't won a championship since 1967, saw their fans head for the exits well before the final buzzer sounded.
One fan even threw their Auston Matthews jersey on the ice in frustration as the Leafs' captain went his 10th straight second-round game without scoring.
"I don't think we gave them much reason to stick around," Matthews said per SDPN's Jesse Blake.
Friend-of-the-blog, Steve Dangle, appeared to perfectly capture Leafs fans' frustration while doing a watch-along.
When Nick Robertson broke Bobrovsky's 143:25 shutout streak late in the third period, Steve acted like the Leafs won the Stanley Cup (which it looks like they will again not do this year).
"There was a lot of mistakes," Leafs head coach Craig Berube said. "And for me, mistakes happen in games. But it's the way they happened tonight that's disappointing... It's disappointing for all of us here, the way we came out in the first period and the way we played."