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Vokoun notches 200th career win, Panthers top Maple Leafs

Jan 7, 2009 - 5:24 AM TORONTO (Ticker) -- Tomas Vokoun was 20 minutes away from a shutout. Instead, he settled for a milestone victory.

Vokoun turned aside 24 shots to notch his 200th career win as the Florida Panthers posted a 4-2 triumph over the Toronto Maple Leafs of Tuesday.

Stephen Weiss, Ville Peltonen and Gregory Campbell recorded a goal and an assist apiece and rookie Michael Frolik also scored for Florida, which improved to 2-0-1 in its last three games.

"I'd like to think that we came out and did some things right," Panthers coach Peter DeBoer said. "We were ready to play tonight and the guys wanted a quick start. We did that, got a lead and hung on."

Defenseman Bryan McCabe, who played the previous seven seasons with the Maple Leafs, recorded an assist in his first appearance against his former team since being acquired by the Panthers in an offseason trade.

"It wasn't too bad out there and I had a good laugh (at the boos)," McCabe said of the crowd's reaction. "It was a little weird being on the other side, (but) all-in-all, it was a good trip."

Alexei Ponikarovsky netted a power-play goal, Jason Blake added a shorthander and rookie John Mitchell notched two assists for Toronto, which fell to 2-5-0 in its last seven games.

"We didn't come out as hard as we should, and basically we were down 3-0," Ponikarovsky said. "Unfortunately, we didn't match their effort and work ethic."

After posting an 0-2-0 mark with a 5.23 goals-against average in his previous three starts, Vokoun found his form against the Maple Leafs. He also credited his team's stingy defensive effort.

"Guys blocked shots and had second efforts getting pucks out of our zone," Vokoun said. "I think we played pretty well tonight."

The 32-year-old Czech kept Toronto off the scoreboard until Ponikarovsky netted a power-play goal 4:43 into the third period.

With the win, Vokoun improved his career record to 200-200-20 with 35 ties.

Florida jumped to a quick start, notching 10 shots in the game's first five minutes to set the tone.

"We outshot them, 10-0, and you're standing out there thinking maybe the next shot is going to be a breakaway, so those are always tough," Vokoun said. "But we played well the whole game."

Weiss finally broke through midway through the session by wristing a shot from the right faceoff circle past Toskala.

Peltonen doubled the advantage nearly 7 1/2 minutes later, when he received a backhand feed from Campbell and wristed the puck under the crossbar for his sixth tally of the campaign.

Frolik extended the Panthers' advantage to three with 5:42 remaining in the second.

Toronto sandwiched special-teams tallies around Campbell's seventh of the season in the third period but could not draw any closer than two goals.

Toskala finished with 30 saves for the Maple Leafs.