Sergei Bobrovsky made 19 saves, Florida scored three times in a 6:24 span in the second period, and the Panthers routed the host Maple Leafs, 6-1, in Game 7 on Sunday night to advance to the Eastern Conference final.
The defending Stanley Cup champs will play the Hurricanes in the conference final, opening at Carolina on Tuesday night.
Seth Jones, Anton Lundell, and Jonah Gadjovich scored in the second-period burst and Eetu Luostarinen, Sam Reinhart, and Brad Marchand (empty net) scored in the third. Marchand, Luostarinen, and Aleksander Barkov each had two assists.
Max Domi scored for Toronto. Joseph Woll made 28 saves.
Jones made it 1-0 at 3:15 of the second, his shot from the right side beating Woll to the far post. Lundell struck on a rebound at 7:18. Gadjovich scored on another rebound at 9:39.
Domi cut it to 3-1 at 2:07 of the third period, beating Bobrovsky between the legs. Luostarinen countered 47 seconds later for Florida and Reinhart scored at 9:24. Marchand, in his 13th Game 7, the most among active players, scored at 16:57.
Referee injured
Referee Chris Rooney, a native of South Boston who is widely considered to be one of the top officials in the NHL, was bloodied and had to leave Game 7 after taking an inadvertent stick above one of his eyes.
Florida’s Niko Mikkola was jousting for the puck and his stick went into Rooney’s face 13 seconds into the second period.
The game was stopped for several minutes and a stretcher was brought onto the ice, but Rooney skated off with some assistance and a towel covering much of his face. He got stitches above his eye. Stand-by official Garrett Rank took over as one of the two referees, joining Jean Hebert and linesmen Devin Berg and Jonny Murray.