Given an additional five minutes, perhaps the Toronto Maple Leafs could have exposed former teammate Bryan McCabe two more times and forced overtime.
Alex Ponikarovsky fought off a McCabe check to cut into a 3-0 Florida Panthers lead in the third period, while Maple Leafs winger Jason Blake got behind the defenceman later in the frame to score a short-handed goal.
But McCabe got the last laugh, recording one assist in a 4-2 Florida Panthers victory in Toronto on Tuesday night.
McCabe added three shots, two blocked shots and one giveaway in 23 minutes, 50 seconds of ice time in his first game against the Leafs since he was traded on Sept. 2 for fellow blue-liner Mike Van Ryn.
"They were really flat," said McCabe of the Maple Leafs, with whom he played for seven seasons. "We really outplayed them, got up a couple, and we really didn't look back from there. It was a good game."
Toronto fans booed McCabe during his first shift of the game and whenever he touched the puck, but the loudest jeers were saved for the home side when the buzzer sounded to end the second period with the Leafs trailing 3-0.
"The boos weren't too bad out there," said McCabe. "I got it much worse when I played here. It was fine."
Another poor startAnother poor start came back to haunt the Leafs, who saw their record fall to 1-8-1 when trailing after 40 minutes and 16-18-6 overall.
The Maple Leafs have been in a 2-0 hole 16 times in 40 games this season. On Tuesday, they allowed Florida to register the first 11 shots of the game and led 6-1 in the giveaway department with 6:55 left in the opening period.
By that time, the home team was in a familiar position, down 1-0 on Toronto native Stephen Weiss' seventh goal of the season. McCabe set up the former Ontario Hockey League standout, giving him 12 assists and 19 points in 30 games this season.
McCabe and the Panthers return to Toronto on Feb. 3.
Weiss added an assist on Michael Frolik's second-period goal and has six points in his last four outings.
The Maple Leafs, a disappointing 8-8-4 at the Air Canada Centre this season, have been outscored 10-1 in the first period over the last six starts on home ice.
Passive in the first period"We're so passive in the first period," said head coach Ron Wilson. "Again, we don't have a take charge type of player on our team right now. It will show in the first period."
Emotional wins have been followed by lacklustre losses too often during the past month or two.
The Leafs looked like the shell of the team that rallied to beat Ottawa 3-1 on Saturday night.
"I was not very happy with the effort," said Wilson. "We had zero energy at all from any veteran players, to show up and lead the way. It was a quiet room before the game, it was quiet on the bench."
Seven minutes after Weiss struck, Ville Peltonen added his sixth of the season seven minutes later when he got behind Leafs blue-liner Ian White and wristed a shot to the glove side past goaltender Vesa Toskala.
Frolik, who was denied his seventh goal in the past 18 contests in the first period when the Toronto net was knocked off its moorings, made it 3-0 Panthers at 14:18 of the middle frame.
After taking a Weiss feed, the Czech centre got between Maple Leafs defenceman Tomas Kaberle and Pavel Kubina and fired a shot to the far corner.
Leafs got on scoreboard latePonikarovsky put Toronto on the board at 4:43 of the third period. Standing beside McCabe, he backhanded a Nik Antropov rebound through the legs of goalie Tomas Vokoun, who denied the Leafs in an 8-0 Panthers triumph at the ACC last Feb. 5. He stopped 24 of 26 shots on Tuesday for his 200th NHL win.
After Gregory Campbell restored Florida's three-goal advantage, Blake got behind McCabe at centre ice and outskated his former teammate to the net, burying his rebound at 12:09.
Blake's fourth goal in seven games was his first short-handed marker since Dec. 30, 2005, when he was a member of the New York Islanders. It was also the first time a Toronto player had scored short-handed in 84 games.
Rookie Luke Schenn returned to the Leafs blue-line for the first time since injuring his knee on Dec. 6. He finished minus-1 with four hits and two blocked shots in 21:25.
After going 2-2 on a four-game homestand, the Leafs now visit the Montreal Canadiens (22-10-6) on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. ET.
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