Sergei Bobrovsky made 19 saves, Florida scored three times in a 6:24 span in the second period and the Panthers routed the Maple Leafs 6-1 in Game 7 on Sunday night in Toronto to advance to the Eastern Conference final.

The defending Stanley Cup champion Panthers will play the Carolina Hurricanes in the conference final, opening on the road Tuesday.

Seth Jones, Anton Lundell and Jonah Gadjovich scored in the second-period burst and Eetu Luostarinen, Sam Reinhart and Brad Marchand — into an empty net — added goals in the third. Marchand, Luostarinen and Aleksander Barkov each had two assists.

Maxi Domi scored for Toronto. Joseph Woll stopped 28 shots.

The United States, after a goalless opening period, proceeded to secure its place in the quarterfinals of the ice hockey world championship with a 6-1 rout of Kazakhstan in Herning, Denmark.

The Americans are tied with the Czech Republic with 14 points in Group B, trailing leader Switzerland with 16. The U.S. completes its group stage on Tuesday against the Czechs, who have two more games to play.

Despite an unproductive first period, the U.S. jumped to a commanding five-goal lead in the second.

Frank Nazar broke the deadlock 6:58 into the period with a shot from the left circle above the glove of Sergei Kudryavtsev. The forward added two assists later in the game.

Defenseman Jackson Lacombe wristed a shot from the blue line through traffic to double the lead with 8:14 to go in the second period.

The next two goals came in the span of 58 seconds.

Forward Tage Thompson scored his fifth at the tournament — after receiving a pass from defenseman Zeev Buium — to make it 3-0 with 6 minutes left. Matty Beniers increased the advantage to four from the left circle before Michael Kesselring scored with a high shot from a tight angle 56 seconds before the end of the period.

U.S. defensive star Zach Werenski skated toward the goal before beating backup goalie Maxim Pavlenko who came on at the beginning of the final period.

Goaltender Jeremy Swayman made 16 saves for the U.S.

COLLEGE SOFTBALL

Alexis Ramirez went 3 for 4 and drove in five runs and UCLA cruised to the NCAA Super Regionals with a 12-1 dismantling of UC Santa Barbara in the Los Angeles Regional at UCLA.

The No. 9-seeded Bruins (52-10) travel to face eighth-seeded South Carolina next weekend. UCLA is chasing its ninth Women’s College World Series berth in the last decade. In going 3-0 in this weekend’s regional play, UCLA outscored it opponents 31-2. UCLA started the weekend with a 9-1 win over the Gauchos (36-26) Friday.

TENNIS

Carlos Alcaraz defeated the top-ranked Jannik Sinner again, 7-6 (5), 6-1, to win his first Italian Open and add another big clay-court title to his resume.

Since the start of last year, Alcaraz is the only player to beat Sinner more than once and now he’s done it four straight times.

Alcaraz’s victory before Sinner’s home fans at the Foro Italico snapped the Italian’s 26-match winning streak, which stretched to October — when Alcaraz beat him in the China Open final in a third-set tiebreaker. Alcaraz now leads the career series 7-4.

It was Sinner’s first tournament back after a three-month doping ban.

Alcaraz also solidified his status as the favorite to defend his title at the French Open, which starts next Sunday.

MOTORSPORTS

Max Verstappen gave his Formula 1 title defense a big boost with victory at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix after a daring overtake on standings leader Oscar Piastri at the start.

The Dutch driver built a commanding lead at Imola, Italy, which was wiped out when the safety car bundled the field back up. He still held on to win ahead of Lando Norris, who overtook his McLaren teammate Piastri for second with five laps left.

Verstappen took his second win of the season, and first since last month’s Japanese Grand Prix, and denied Piastri — who finished third — what would have been his fourth win in a row.

Lewis Hamilton recovered from 12th on the grid to finish fourth in his first race for Ferrari in Italy.

A rookie driver for a brand new team won the pole for the Indianapolis 500.

Robert Shwartzman, a 25-year-old with dual nationality in Israel and Russia, became the first Indy 500 rookie to qualify on the pole since Teo Fabi in 1983. Shwartzman drives for Prema Racing, an Italian team which races in the Formula 2 series in Europe and made its IndyCar debut this season.

Qualifying day for Roger Penske turned into a disaster when all three of his cars were denied a chance to run for the pole. It comes a year after the same three drivers swept the front row at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The day got off to a horrible start when Scott McLaughlin, last year’s pole-sitter, crashed in morning practice and Team Penske decided it wouldn’t even bother sending him out for the fast 12 shootout and just accept the 12th starting spot in the field.

Then, moments before the shootout began, rival team owner Chip Ganassi accused Team Penske of cheating. Minutes later, the cars for two-time defending race winner Josef Newgarden and Will Power returned to the garage. IndyCar announced the two cars had failed inspection and would not be allowed to qualify.

The punishment meant that the front row from last year will now start side-by-side-by-side in the fourth row in 10th, 11th and 12th.

The fast 12 was also reduced to just nine cars attempting to advance to the final qualifying round, when six drivers compete for the pole for the May 25 race. The six to advance were Felix Rosenqvist, Pato O’Ward, rookie Robert Shwartzman, Scott Dixon, Alex Palou and Takuma Sato.

Christopher Bell passed Joey Logano with nine laps remaining and cruised to victory in an action-packed NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway.

In a slam-bang affair that set a record for lead changes, Bell won by 0.829 seconds over Logano to earn his first All-Star Race victory. Ross Chastain finished third, followed by Alex Bowman and Chase Elliott.

Capitalizing on pit strategy, Carson Hocevar led the final 46 laps to win the All-Star Open and advanced into NASCAR All-Star Race. Runner-up John Hunter Nemechek also advanced to the main event by finishing second in the 100-lap warmup race. .

GOLF

Angel Cabrera and Jerry Kelly shared the lead at 18 under in the final round of the Regions Tradition when play was suspended for the day because of darkness.

Cabrera had three holes left and Kelly four to go at Greystone in Birmingham, Ala., in the PGA Tour Champions major tournament. Y.E. Yang was a stroke back with four holes left. They will resume play today at 6 a.m.

CYCLING

Isaac del Toro became the first Mexican cyclist to take the overall lead of the Giro d’Italia but the 21-year-old was beaten on the line by Wout van Aert in a tough and dusty ninth stage to Siena.