The Florida Panthers' Aleksander Barkov, right, gets tripped up by the Maple Leafs' Auston Matthews during the third period of their NHL playoff game in Toronto on Wednesday. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP)

Mikko Rantanen is on a history-making tear. The Florida Panthers need a history-making comeback.

The Toronto Maple Leafs will seek a 3-0 lead in their Eastern Conference semifinal series against the defending Stanley Cup champion Panthers tonight, while Rantanen — on a scoring roll the likes of which hockey hasn’t seen in generations — will lead the Dallas Stars into Game 2 of their Western Conference semifinal series against the Winnipeg Jets.

Florida lost a pair of one-goal games at Toronto to open their series, which resumes on the Panthers’ home ice for Game 3 today.

History says the Panthers are in big trouble: Toronto has won all 11 of its previous best-of-seven series when taking a 2-0 lead at home, Florida is 0-5 all-time in series where it dropped both Games 1 and 2, and leaguewide, teams facing 0-2 deficits come back to win those series only about 14% of the time.

There are no magic words to utter, Panthers coach Paul Maurice said Thursday.

“If there was, you would have said it two games ago, right? We’re not holding back any gems,” Maurice said. “That’s probably the most important thing that you realize. We went on the road and lost two one-goal games. Our game’s not perfect. Neither is theirs. So, you’re looking for an adjustment to foundation more than an adjustment to something unusual.”

Over in the West, where Dallas stuck first in Winnipeg with a 3-2 win, Rantanen is indeed doing something unusual — lots of things that are unusual, actually.

He’s the third player in NHL playoff history to have a hat trick in back-to-back games: Jari Kurri for Edmonton in 1985 and Doug Bentley for Chicago in 1944 are the others. He’s had a hand in each of Dallas’ last 12 goals, a streak unmatched by any player on any team in playoff history. He’s the first player in playoff history with at least eight goals and six assists in a four-game span. The first player with two three-goal periods in the same postseason. And on, and on, and on.

“Let’s see how long he can run this for,” Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said. “He’s rolling. He’s feeling it. Pretty impressive, what he’s doing. I mean, considering the opponent and the time of year and how he’s dominating games, really impressive.”

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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl