Nik's trick caps rally

By MIKE ZEISBERGER -- Toronto Sun
SUNRISE,Fla. -- They may have been playing in the deep south, but the Maple Leafs and the Florida Panthers last night engaged in a shootout worthy of the Wild West.

In the end, the unlikely hero was the Kazakhstan Kid, a pimply faced 19-year-old rookie who rode in to save the day for Toronto.

"My first NHL hat trick -- unbelievable," Nik Antropov said after Toronto's come-from-behind 6-4 win at the National Car Rental Center. "I'm very happy."

Try as he might to answer questions from the media in his broken English, Antropov mostly struggled. No matter. The grin on his face told the story.

Antropov, who entered the game with just one NHL goal, scored three times to help the Leafs snap a seven-game winless streak on the road. None was more important than the game-winner, at 10:03 of the third period.

With the score 4-4, Florida's Cam Stewart made an awful drop pass inside his own blue line that Antropov gobbled up. The Leafs' 1998 first-round draft pick blasted a shot that beat shaky Panthers goalie Mikhail Shtalenkov through the legs to put Toronto up for good.

Antropov, who had opened the scoring in the first period, then sealed the win as he completed the hat trick with 6:23 left.

"Hopefully this was a coming out for him," Leafs general manager/coach Pat Quinn said.

Give Quinn credit. He looks like a genius now after declining a request by Kazakhstan to have Antropov play at the world junior championships, which start Christmas Day.

The win gave the Leafs sole possession of first place in the NHL Eastern Conference with 46 points. But it was anything but easy.

Ahead 2-0 for more than half the game, the Leafs gave up four consecutive goals to the Panthers within an eight-minute span. As a result they found themselves trailing 4-2 with 17:38 to play in the third period.

Instead of shrivelling up and calling it a night, however, the Leafs responded with four goals of their own in 8:27. Igor Korolev and Dmitry Yushkevich scored to tie the game before Antropov finished off the Panthers.

Had the Panthers held on, they would have pulled into a three-way tie for first in the conference with the Leafs and the Philadelphia Flyers.

"It was a struggle," Quinn said. "It was a big game for first place. There were lots of turns in the road but we managed to do it."

Mats Sundin also scored for the Leafs.

"We showed a lot of character," Sundin said. "Even when they went up by two goals in the third, we kept our composure.

"(Nik) had a great training camp. No one can question that he belongs."

Tie Domi arguably had the best description of Antropov.

"I don't like to make comparisons but he reminds me of a young Alexei Yashin," Domi said. "With more grit, of course."

The Leafs are now 4-7-2 on the road heading into their game against the Lightning tonight in Tampa Bay.

Antropov's performance stripped some of the spotlight from Florida's Pavel Bure. The NHL's player of the week led the Panthers last night with a goal and two assists.

In the process, Bure established a Panthers record by scoring in his fifth consecutive game. He also tied a team mark by running his points streak to eight games.

In the end, it wasn't enough.

"We're going to have to learn from this," Panthers coach Terry Murray said. "This is a top team we're going against, going for first place in the conference, and we didn't handle it."

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