SUNRISE, Fla. _ Cancel the caterer. Send back the flowers. Postpone the funeral.
The Florida Panthers held off the grim reaper and the upstart Toronto Maple Leafs in a 7-2 rout Tuesday at the BB&T Center to snap a five-game slide, maintaining a faint pulse to their flickering playoff hopes.
Led by a pair of goals from Jonathan Marchessault and four gorgeous assists from recently acquired Thomas Vanek, the Panthers remain on life support after this four-point swing meeting against one of the teams they need to displace for the second wild-card playoff berth in the Eastern Conference. Vanek's four assists tied the franchise mark and were a career high.
The Panthers have 71 points and still trail the Leafs by five points with 14 games remaining for both. They also need to leapfrog the Lightning and Islanders, who both won and have 77 points apiece. If the Panthers finish 10-3-1 for 92 points, they'd have a 22.9 percent chance of making the playoffs, according to sportsclubstats.com.
The Panthers, 1-2-1 against the Leafs, have another crack at them on March 28 in Air Canada Centre. The seven goals ties a season high set in a 7-4 win over Nashville on Feb. 11.
The Panthers, who had lost seven of their previous eight at home, will happily escape South Florida for the snowy climes, albeit against the Blue Jackets, Rangers, and Penguins, the third-, fourth- and second-ranked teams in their conference.
Knowing their season was on the line, the Panthers' reunited top line wasted no time in grabbing a 1-0 lead just 18 seconds after the two anthems were sung. Aleksander Barkov won the draw, drove to the net and received a slick give-and-go pass from Jonathan Huberdeau before steering it off the post and pads of Leafs goalie Frederik Andersen.
Barkov's 18th goal was the fastest goal by the Panthers to start a game this season, and 8 seconds off the franchise record set by Johan Garpenlov _ who was in the building _ against Colorado on Oct. 17, 1996.
The Panthers took a 2-0 lead for the second consecutive game when after a Leafs' shot attempt during a power play caromed to center ice past a stumbling Nikita Zaitsev, Panthers captain Derek MacKenzie sprung Colton Sceviour on a breakaway.
Sceviour, who seems to have a breakaway per game, finished this one with a sweeping wrister for his third shorty (9th overall) of the season, the most by a Panther since Radek Dvorak in 2009-10.
However, a Jaromir Jagr holding penalty gave the Leafs another power play, and this one they would capitalize on against Florida's top-ranked PK unit on Leo Komarov's point-blanker past James Reimer, his former teammate, at 13:36.
The Panthers weren't finished, as 45 seconds later Vanek fed Marchessault for a 30-foot snap shot that was helped by a 6-foot-6 screen set by Nick Bjugstad. That gave the Panthers a 3-1 cushion after one, and ended Andersen's night (three goals on eight shots) as he was replaced by Curtis McElhinney to start the second.
The goalie switch didn't help as Marchessault notched No. 22 on a tic-tac-toe beauty to tie Vincent Trocheck for the team lead at 4:38.
Even the slumping Reilly Smith joined the goal-fest when after a sweet deke, he swatted in his own rebound at 16:22 for his 11th goal to snap a 15-game drought. Nikita Soshnikov's backhander gave the 'Go Leafs Go' crowd some hope, but Jussi Jokinen quickly silenced them with a power-play goal set up by Vanek with 27 seconds left for a 6-2 lead after two.
Defenseman Keith Yandle became Florida's sixth different goal scorer on a sweeping backhander off a cross from Vanek 2:17 into the third to cap off the blowout and Florida's first win in regulation since Feb. 20, a 2-1 win over St. Louis. That was also the last time Reimer skated off the ice a winner after going 0-6-1 in his last 7 starts.
