The Florida Panthers were facing more than sudden-death overtime Friday night. They were facing their season all but suddenly dying.

The overtime ended with the horn blasting happily, with rats on the ice, and with jubilant teammates hugging winning-goal scorer Brad Marchand.

And the season lives, hope lives, for the reigning Stanley Cup champions.

Marchand’s goal with 4:33 left in OT won the game, 5-4, over Toronto, halving Florida’s second-round playoff series deficit to 2-1.

“You could tell they were tired,” Marchand said of the Leafs. “They were kind of sittin’ back. I looked to find a lane to get it through, change the angle, get a better shot.”

It was Marchand’s fourth playoff OT game-winner. What’s that feel like?

“It’s a blur, honestly,” he said. “It happens very quick. You’re exhausted. It’s one second of a game. It could be anybody.”

The Cats are now on a 13-2 run in overtime playoff games, and this one was more crucial than most.

Sudden death to new life.

Hope. A fighting chance. A reason to believe.

The Panthers had all of that Friday night.

Then lost it.

Then got it back in the end.

Call it what you will on what Game 3 meant to the Florida Panthers.

It meant just about everything.

The Panthers were down 2-0 in this series and then trailed Friday 2-0 and then 3-1. They were flat-lining before a helpless home crowd, heading for close to done.

And then they weren’t. Then the patient opened an eye, and then sat bolt upright. (Do you believe in miracles?)

With Game 4 back in Sunrise Sunday night, the entire series outlook just took on a different look, and feel.

Florida was staring at an 0-3 series deficit that has been a death knell across NHL playoff history. Teams at the bottom of that deep well recover to win the series a negligible 1.9% of the time — four times in 212 all-time instances.

(Those rarest of exceptions? By the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1942, the New York Islanders in 1975, the Philadelphia Flyers in 2010, and the Los Angeles Kings in 2014. That’s it.)

No Panther wanted to say exactly what all knew: Must win. Had to.

With a 1-2 deficit now the historical chances of winning a series bounce up to a manageable 31.2%, though with a Game 3 win at home it’s at 21.3% because the opponent, the Maple Leafs in this case, still own home-ice advantage.

Still, the Panthers did nothing less than get back in the series Friday, give themselves new life and their fans reason to hope.

Now they must do it again Sunday, or the series odds against them will turn heavy again.

It was a wild night that got them here, first seconds to sudden death.

The pregame chants of “Bob-by!” exhorting the best from goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky had barely subsided when Toronto led 1-0 a mere 23 seconds into the game. It was a Matthew Knies wrist shot that smashed the mute button on the home crowd.

Ominously it felt like the start of Game 1, when the Cats came out looking a step slow against the Maple Leafs’ pace.

And that continued for a 2-0 Panthers hole 5:57 into the game on a wraparound goal by John Tavares.

Florida and its crowd desperately needed a lift.

They got one.

Captain Aleksander Barkov’s wrist shot in close found an opening that wasn’t there 7:38 in to halve the deficit to 2-1, providing a needed slap awake.

Toronto (Tavares again) cashed a power play for a 3-1 Leafs lead early in the second period to quell the crowd ...

... but not for long.

Two Panthers goals 64 seconds apart tied it 3-3 in the second: The first deflected-in by Sam Reinhart on what was initially ruled no-goal but overturned, properly, on review. And the second on a Carter Verhaeghe wrist shot off a gorgeous pass from Sam Bennett.

“In the second we began to find our game, look like ourselves,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said.

It was 4-3, the Cats’ first lead of the night, on a Tomas Nosek snap shot from distance that was redirected into the net and past Leafs goalie Joseph Woll by Jonah Gadjovich.

It looked like only Nosek’s second goal of the season (his other was Nov. 7) in his first game action since April 14 until the official scoring credited Gadjovich nearly an hour later. Both men had lost spots in the rotation after late-season trades brought in Marchand and others, but made it back onto the fourth line Friday as Maurice tinkered with better defense in mind.

Nosek-then-Gadjovich were poised to be the night’s unlikeliest of heroes ... until Toronto tied it 4-4 with 9:04 left in regulation with terrible luck befalling the Panthers. Morgan Rielly got credit for the Leafs' tying goal but replays showed it as what in soccer they’d call an own-goal. It was a puck ricocheted off the right knee of his own defenseman, Seth Jones, that flew past Bobrovsky.

“Everybody has to step up a little more and be better,” Barkov said before Game 3.

Everybody who needed to, did, especially Bobrovsky.

“We trust Bob,” Verhaeghe said.

And then in the end came the horn, the flying rats, the joy, the relief.

In the end came Brad Marchand, once the opponent hated by the Panthers and their fans — now suddenly the hero turning sudden death into new life.

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