Florida Panthers at Toronto Maple Leafs

Nylander has 2 goals and an assist as Maple Leafs beat Panthers 5-4 in Game 1 of 2nd round series

Nylander scored twice in the first period before adding an assist as Toronto built a big lead before holding on to beat the Florida Panthers 5-4 on Monday night in the series opener.

Matthew Knies and Chris Tanev each had a goal and an assist, and Morgan Rielly also scored for the Maple Leafs. Max Pacioretty and Jake McCabe each had two assists.

“We’ve been in tight games throughout the season,” Nylander said. “We dug into that and tried to bear down.”

Anthony Stolars stopped eight of the nine shots he faced before leaving in the second period after he took an elbow to the head from Panthers forward Sam Bennett, who wasn’t penalized on the play. The Maple Leafs said the 31-year-old was being evaluated, but provided no further update.

“Elbow to the head,” Toronto coach Craig Berube said. “Clear as day. ... I get it, they miss calls. But it’s clearly a penalty.”

Joseph Woll stopped 17 shots in relief.

Seth Jones, Eetu Luostarinen, Uvis Balinskis and Sam Bennett scored for the Panthers, and Brad Marchand and Carter Verhaeghe each had two assists. Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 24 shots.

Florida beat Toronto in five games in the second round in the 2023 playoffs on the way to reaching the Stanley Cup Final. The Panthers went one step further last year when they won the Cup for the first time in franchise history.

Game 2 is Wednesday back at Scotiabank Arena, before shifting to South Florida for two games.

Toronto opened the scoring just 33 seconds after puck drop when Nylander beat Bobrovsky through the five-hole from a tight angle for his fourth goal of the playoffs.

The Maple Leafs, who beat Ottawa in six games in the first round to register just the second series win for the Original Six franchise in more than two decades, went up 2-0 with 7:09 left in the first when Nylander scooped up a rebound before deking Bobrovsky to the ice and roofing his second of the period.

“He came out and was feeling it,” Rielly said of the slick winger. “That helps set the tone.”

Jones got the Panthers on the board with a shot from the point through traffic on a power play with 3:03 remaining for his second of the postseason.

Toronto restored its two-goal lead just 19 seconds later when Nylander sent Rielly off to the races on a 2-on-1 with John Tavares. The defenseman and longest serving member of the current roster looked Bobrovsky off before firing past the goalie’s blocker for his third of the postseason.

“Obviously it wasn’t a great start by us,” Panthers forward Aleksander Barkov said. “We knew they were going to come hard and strong.”

Florida, which beat the Tampa Bay Lightning in five games to advance, got a man advantage in the second that saw Stolarz make a couple of stops, but Bennett caught him with a sneaky elbow to the back of the head.

Toronto made it 4-1 at 7:50 when Tanev’s knuckling shot from distance fooled Bobrovsky for his first.

Stolarz, who backed up Bobrovsky on the way to Florida’s Cup win a year ago, was seen on television vomiting by the bench a few minutes later before getting replaced by Woll.

Nylander had a chance to complete the first playoff hat trick of his career on a shot that knocked the stick out of Bobrovsky’s hand but the puck stayed out as the Maple Leafs headed to the locker room up three.

Luostarinen cut the deficit back to two on a redirection 1:41 into the third, and Balinskis then made it 4-3 at 4:30 after a Panthers push inside a suddenly tense building.

“We didn’t look like ourselves,” Florida head coach Paul Maurice said of his team’s opening period. “And then (we) righted it in the second and after that had a pretty good push in the third.”

Toronto failed to connect on two power plays later in third before Bobrovsky denied Max Domi on a break.

Knies made it 5-3 with 6 minutes left in regulation with a move to the backhand on another breakaway.

Bennett got his team back within one with 1:55 left in regulation on a pinballed shot off a Toronto stick, but Woll and the Maple Leafs held the fort late to secure an early lead in the series.

“That was nice for us,” Nylander said. “But we’re just focused on next game now.”

The Panthers were without defenseman Aaron Ekblad, who finished off a two-game suspension for his headshot on Tampa Bay forward Brandon Hagel in the opening round.

The Maple Leafs have three players from the Panthers’ championship team — Stolarz, defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Steven Lorentz.

FLA wins series 3-1