William Nylander scored twice in the first period before adding an assist as the host Toronto Maple Leafs built a big lead before holding on to beat the Florida Panthers 5-4 on Monday night in the opener of the Eastern Conference second-round series.

Matthew Knies and Chris Tanev each had a goal and an assist, and Morgan Rielly also scored for the Maple Leafs. Max Pacioretty and Jake McCabe each had two assists.

Anthony Stolars stopped eight of the nine shots he faced before leaving in the second period with an undisclosed injury. Joseph Woll stopped 17 shots in relief.

Seth Jones, Eetu Luostarinen, Uvis Balinskis and Sam Bennett scored for the Panthers, and Brad Marchand and Carter Verhaeghe each had two assists. Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 24 shots.

Florida beat Toronto in five games in the second round in the 2023 playoffs on the way to reaching the Stanley Cup Final. The Panthers went one step further last year when they won the Cup for the first time in franchise history.

Game 2 is Wednesday back at Scotiabank Arena, before moving to South Florida for two games.

Toronto opened the scoring just 33 seconds after puck drop when Nylander beat Bobrovsky through the five-hole from a tight angle for his fourth goal of the playoffs.

The Maple Leafs, who beat Ottawa in six games in the first round to register just the second series win for the Original Six franchise in more than two decades, went up 2-0 with 7:09 left in the first when Nylander scooped up a rebound before deking Bobrovsky to the ice and roofing his second of the period.

Jones got the Panthers on the board with a shot from the point through traffic on a power play with 3:03 remaining for his second of the postseason.

Toronto restored its two-goal lead just 19 seconds later when Nylander sent Rielly off to the races on a 2-on-1 with John Tavares. The defenseman and longest serving member of the current roster looked Bobrovsky off before firing past the goalie’s blocker for his third of the postseason.

Florida, which beat the Tampa Bay Lightning in five games to advance, got a man advantage in the second that saw Stolarz make a couple of stops.

But Bennett caught him with a sneaky elbow to the back of the head.

Toronto made it 4-1 at 7:50 when Tanev’s knuckling shot from distance fooled Bobrovsky for his first.

Stolarz, who backed up Bobrovsky on the way to Florida’s Cup win a year ago, was seen on television vomiting by the bench a few minutes later before getting replaced by Woll.

NHL to host international event in New York City: The NHL is planning an international event at UBS Arena next February in lieu of the previously announced All-Star Weekend at the home of the New York Islanders, a person with knowledge of the situation said Monday.

The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the league has not announced its plans for the weekend before the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics.

Commissioner Gary Bettman has said on multiple occasions recently that the league has been rethinking what to do about the event after the success of the 4 Nations Face-Off international tournament earlier this year. The thought was always to use New York as a jumping off point for Milan, with players leaving from there to participate in the Olympics for the first time since 2014.

“We know we’ve set the bar high, which should be a good thing, not a problem,” Bettman said last week at a meeting of Associated Press Sports Editors in New York.

“We’re going to make sure we do something. ... We’ll have an event at UBS before we go to the Olympics. But then we’ll do something that’s more focused on a major hockey event for the following year.”

Canucks’ X account compromised: The Vancouver Canucks said their official account on the X social media platform was compromised on Monday.

The NHL team sent out a statement saying to “disregard any recent posts” and that it was working with the platform to resolve the issue.

The statement comes after a post showing a video of billionaire Elon Musk announcing a $20 million cryptocurrency giveaway was pinned to the top of the Canucks’ feed. Musk is the owner of the X platform.

Replies were turned off for the post.

The Canucks X account appeared to be operating normally before that.

Earlier messages included a promotion of Monday’s NHL draft lottery and an announcement that defenseman Marcus Pettersson was joining Sweden’s team at the world hockey championship.