Maple Leafs react to blowout collapse vs. Florida

You might have looked at the television at one point on Tuesday night and the Toronto Maple Leafs were leading 5-1 over the Florida Panthers. And you took that for granted. They then collapsed and miss the chance to gain ground the Atlantic Division leaders, blowing a 5-1 lead against Panthers and losing 7-6 in overtime.

After taking a four-goal lead in the second period, the Maple Leafs allowed five straight goals to the Panthers before captain John Tavares scored on the power play to push the contest in overtime.

Jason Spezza reacted to the Maple Leafs’ collapse right after it happened:

“You don’t want wild swings in a game where we had control,” Spezza said. “When we have control like that, you want to lock it down. You have to learn from it. It’s a team we’re likely to see again.”

Head coach Sheldon Keefe still believes his team played a good hockey game, though fans would say other wise.

“We go from having a chance on a breakaway to go up 6-1 to taking a too-many-men-on-ice penalty right after,” Keefe said. “That starts the snowball. We had pretty terrible penalty killing. I’m not going to focus on all that stuff, I’m going to focus on the fact we played a good hockey game today.”

Would you say they played a good hockey game?

Let’s see how they bounce back from this collapse on Thursday against the Dallas Stars.