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05/09 21:45 CDT Marchand scores in OT, Panthers top Maple Leafs 5-4 to cut series deficit to 2-1 Marchand scores in OT, Panthers top Maple Leafs 5-4 to cut series deficit to 2-1 By TIM REYNOLDS AP Sports Writer SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) --- Brad Marchand scored on a deflected shot at 15:27 of overtime and the Florida Panthers beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-4 on Friday night to cut their deficit in the Eastern Conference semifinal series to 2-1. Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, Carter Verhaeghe and Jonah Gadjovich scored for Florida, which got 27 saves from Sergei Bobrovsky. Evan Rodrigues had two assists for the Panthers. They 13-2 in their last 15 playoff overtime games. John Tavares scored twice, and Matthew Knies and Morgan Rielly also scored for the Maple Leafs. Joseph Woll stopped 32 shots. Game 4 will be in Sunrise on Sunday night. Florida erased deficits of 2-0 and 3-1, and that's been almost impossible to do against Toronto this season. By the numbers, it was all looking good for the Maple Leafs. --- They were 30-3-0 when leading after the first period, including playoffs, the second-best record in the league. --- They were 38-8-2, the league's third-best record when scoring first. --- They had blown only 11 leads all season, none in the playoffs. --- They were 44-3-1 in games where they led by two goals or more. Combine all that with Toronto having won all 11 of its previous best-of-seven series when taking a 2-0 lead at home, Florida being 0-5 in series where it dropped both Games 1 and 2, and leaguewide, teams facing 0-2 deficits come back to win those series only about 14% of the time. But Marchand --- a longtime Toronto playoff nemesis from his days in Boston --- got the biggest goal of Florida's season, rendering all those numbers moot for now. The Leafs got two goals that deflected in off of Panthers defensemen: Tavares' second goal nicked the glove of Gustav Forsling on its way past Bobrovsky for a 3-1 lead, and Rielly's goal redirected off Seth Jones' leg to tie it with 9:04 left in the third. Knies scored 23 seconds into the game, the second time Toronto had a 1-0 lead in the first minute of this series. Tavares made it 2-0 at 5:57 and just like that, the Panthers were in trouble. A diving Barkov threw the puck at the night and saw it carom in off a Toronto stick to get Florida on the board --- only for Tavares to score again early in the second for a 3-1 Leafs lead. Florida needed a break. It came. Reinhart was credited with a goal after Woll thought he covered up the puck following a scrum in front of the net. But after review, it was determined the puck had crossed the line. Florida had life, the building was loud again and about a minute later, Verhaeghe tied it at 3-3. Gadjovich made it 4-3 late in the second, before Rielly tied it midway through the third. ___ AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

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