William Nylander and the Toronto Maple Leafs lived to fight another day on Wednesday night, defeating the Florida Panthers 2-1 in a tight Game 4 and avoiding the embarrassment of a sweep at the hands of their Atlantic Division rivals.

But Nylander knows there's still a long way to go if the Leafs want to be the fifth team in NHL history to rebound from a 3-0 series deficit and triumph in Game 7.

“It's going to take even more than it did tonight, but I think winning one here is obviously a step on the way,” the winger said afterwards, according to NHL.com. “Don't want to get too high, it's just one win. We've got a long ways to go.”

Although Toronto's “Core Four” of Nylander, Mitch Marner, Auston Matthews and John Tavares have been eerily quiet in the series, they came to play in Game 4.

Nylander opened the scoring with a power-play tally in the second, his first goal since Game 2 against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Round 1. Marner also scored his first of the series, the eventual game-winning goal halfway through the third.

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“The first thing is that they care, they care deeply,” Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe said about his top four players, calling it his team's best effort of the season. “Because of that, you give that type of effort. They didn't want to go quietly, and that's what we've been talking about. We were going to leave it all out there here today.

“Of course, from the coach side of it, now you look and say, ‘That's the standard. That's what we've been trying to get to, that is what's required.' So, we can't have any letup in that regard.”

The Leafs will look to win their first game of the series on home ice at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto on Friday night. If they can triumph, it'll officially be a series again.

“If we battle,” Leafs star William Nylander asserted, “we have a chance against these guys.”