Auston Matthews got his first goal of the series to break a scoreless tie in the third period, Joseph Woll stopped 21 shots and the Toronto Maple Leafs kept their season alive by beating the Florida Panthers 2-0 in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference semifinal series Friday night.

Game 7 is Sunday night in Toronto. The winner will face Carolina in the East final.

Max Pacioretty added an insurance goal for the visiting Maple Leafs, who improved to 4-2 when facing elimination since the start of the 2023 playoffs.

Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 15 shots for the Panthers, the defending Stanley Cup champions who oddly are only 8-7 in potential closeout games over the last three postseasons.

Florida coach Paul Maurice is 5-0 in Game 7s, including the final game of last season’s Stanley Cup Final. The Panthers are 3-1 in the ultimate game of a series — 2-0 on the road — while the Maple Leafs have lost each of their last six Game 7s. Of those, four were against Boston and now-Panthers forward Brad Marchand.

It was the 68th game of this season’s playoffs — and only the second that was 0-0 after 40 minutes. The other was Wednesday night, when Edmonton wound up eliminating Vegas with a 1-0 victory in overtime in Game 5 of that Western Conference semifinal series.

Toronto had five goals in Game 1, four more in Game 2 and had three by the early goings of the second period of Game 3.