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Saturday, Dec. 30 7:00pm ET
Sutter gets first loss with Florida | |||||
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SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) -- Florida Panthers center Len Barrie provoked a fight to inspire his struggling hockey team. It didn't work. Instead a flurry of penalties against him resulted in a power-play goal by Sergei Berezin that helped the Toronto Maple Leafs to a 4-1 victory Saturday night. For punching Bryan McCabe in the face in a second-period brawl, Barrie was slapped with a fighting major, double minors for roughing and a match penalty. The sequence put the Panthers, losers of 16 of their last 18 games, down a man for seven minutes. Toronto's Darcy Tucker got a 2-minute roughing penalty. "I just wanted to get an altercation going with Tucker to maybe try to change the momentum at that point," said Barrie, who faces a league review for his match penalty and a possible suspension. "McCabe comes yelling and screaming at me, so I popped him." Barrie was baffled that the officials said he intended to injure McCabe, who also got a 10-minute misconduct. "If you see my face right now, I obviously took some blows," said Barrie, who had scrapes around his eyes. "I wasn't the only one throwing punches. ... Now you can't punch a guy in the head in hockey?" Toronto won for just the second time in eight games. "I didn't see it coming," McCabe said of Barrie's punch. "I thought it was a really cheap play on his part. I have no respect for a guy like that. ... Just loosened my teeth a little, no big deal. A flesh wound." It was the first loss for Panthers coach Duane Sutter, who won his debut 3-0 Friday night over Boston. Terry Murray was fired Thursday along with his brother, general manager Bryan Murray. "I thought McCabe got away from it scot-free," Sutter said. "When Lennie Barrie fell on the ice, he took six or seven good wallops." Maple Leafs coach Pat Quinn felt Barrie's penalty was deserved. "The guy earned what he got," Quinn said. "You have to penalize those things. Nobody likes the sucker punches." Berezin opened the scoring at 6:01 of the first period. Taking a two-on-one pass from Tie Domi, Berezin flicked the puck past Roberto Luongo, breaking the Panthers goalie's club-record shutout streak of 130 minutes, 35 seconds. Berezin's power-play goal at 13:28 of the second period -- during the seven-minute manpower advantage -- made it 3-0. It was his 11th of the year, and he was assisted by Yanic Perreault and Danny Markov. Gary Roberts had a goal at 7:37 of the second period for Toronto, and Igor Korolev added a breakaway goal at 9:08 of the third period. Ray Whitney scored Florida's goal during a two-man advantage at 17:51 of the second period. Game notesMaple Leafs center Mats Sundin had a goal wiped out because it came a just after the horn sounded to end the first period. Replays showed the shot was late. ... Luongo's shutout streak covered four games. ... Leafs defenseman Cory Cross, placed on injured reserve Dec. 6 with a hip injury, was activated. | ALSO SEE NHL Scoreboard Toronto Clubhouse Florida Clubhouse RECAPS Edmonton 3 Montreal 2
Toronto 4 AUDIO/VIDEO   Gary Roberts scores the goal off Roberto Luongo's skate.avi: 515 k RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1 | |||||