Cote: Champion Florida Panthers are desperate, doubted, down 2-0. Now the series gets good

OK, now it gets good. The animus has ratcheted up. The desperation has arrived.

The reigning Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers are in a deep hole, their chances to repeat battered.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are getting physical, feeling feisty and feeling good, up 2-0 in the NHL playoffs’ second round.

The series is heading south.

The series is getting good.

Hockey history does not believe in the Panthers now.

Do you?

History says teams down 2-0 in a postseason series recover to win or advance only 13.7 percent of the time, but these are the champs, heading to Sunrise for the next two games, and with three of the last five at home.

It makes Game 3 Friday night feel like must-win: Champs on the ropes, ready for a fight, down, desperate and doubted.

It’s what hockey fans live for.

The Panthers’ 4-3 loss Wednesday, after a 5-4 loss in Game 1, has Florida skating uphill.

“Didn’t love our Game 1, but we liked our game tonight; now we get to go home,” said coach Paul Maurice afterward.

Said Aaron Ekblad: “That’s our mentality: Get home, get our crowd behind us.”

Mackie Samoskevich said the postgame talks from both Maurice and captain Aleksander Barkov conveyed the same message: Gotta move on right away. Both close games. Can’t get down on ourselves.

Said veteran Brad Marchand: “We have our work cut out, but it’s a day at a time. It’s OK in here. We have a lot of experience. These series can change on a dime and it’s all about the next one.”

The Cats trailed 3-2 entering the third period but drew even on Anton Lundell’s snap shot off a pass from Ekblad, back after a two-game suspension.

The euphoria down in South Florida lasted all of 17 seconds. That’s when Leaf Mitch Marner’s wrist shot from deep on the right wing got past Sergei Bobrovsky.

Florida pulled the goal with 2:55 to play and sent a blitzkrieg of late shots at Leafs goalie Joseph Woll, but he was a Wall then.

Game 2 saw the physicality torqued up, and Toronto match Florida for hits.

The Panthers have three of the NHL’s more disliked players by opposing fans in Matthew Tkachuk, Marchand and Sam Bennett. Each is seen as dirty by many. They are professional irritants, at least — cherished if they are on your team, despised if they are not.

Wednesday, Marchand had a goal for the Cats. Bennett was booed on every touch of the puck after his elbow hit in Game 1 knocked Maple Leafs goaltender Anthony Stolarz from that game and also from Game 2. Tkachuk was around the scrum in the night’s first fight.

Maurice, asked after Wednesday’s morning skate about his three “public enemies”: “I don’t think they feed off. It doesn’t bother them at all, doesn’t affect them. I don’t think it shapes them one bit, throws them off, wires ‘em up. They are three elite players.”

But Bennett’s shot on Stolarz cleared fired up Toronto Wednesday as his replacement Woll rose tall.

After Game 1’s lethargic start by Florida, the Panthers opened perfectly Wednesday: With jets in the skates, with a vintage-good Bobrovsky at the net, with a continued big penalty-kill, and with a 1-0 lead mid-period on Barkov’s wrist shot on a power play.

Cats at that point had snuffed a pair of Toronto power plays to make it 7-for-7 on the man-down stop this young series.

“We killed the ones we had to and scored on our first,” as coach Paul Maurice put it.

Said Tkachuk of the fast start: “We started on time, we were quick.”

The perfect period didn’t end as such, alas.

Toronto solved Florida’s penalty kill to make it 1-1 less than two minutes before the break on Max Pacioretty’s power-play put-in past Bobrovsky off a Morgan Rielly shot.

Florida needed all of 15 seconds into the second period to regain the lead 2-1 on Marchand’s backhand shot in close past Woll off an Anton Lundell pass. That Marchand third-line has been terrific.

But Toronto four minutes later made it 2-2 on William Nylander’s backhand shot past Bobrovsky.

Leafs were up 3-2 late in the second on Max Domi’s wrist shot off a pass by Steven Lorentz, one of three ex-Panthers on the roster.

Then came the third period, the quick swap of goals.

And the defending Stanley Cup champions were packing an unfamiliar feeling for the long flight home.

Down, doubted and desperate are the Cats.

And now it gets good.

Cote: Champion Florida Panthers are desperate, doubted, down 2-0. Now the series gets good | Opinion

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