The Florida Panthers started their series opener against the Boston Bruins about as great as they possibly could.
After being relatively idle for a week while they waited to find out their second-round opponent, the Panthers looked incredibly stout. Their forecheck was aggressive. They had a slew of offensive zone time. Goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky made his share of big saves to cover up for some early mistakes. And they eventually cracked open the scoreboard first with a goal from Matthew Tkachuk midway through the second period. Bottled up, it’s the recipe the Panthers have shown for success. And then, it all went downhill. The Panthers were unusually sloppy on defense end down the stretch and Boston took full advantage in an eventual 5-1 Florida loss in Game 1 on Monday at Amerant Bank Arena.
“We just had a few too many breakdowns,” veteran forward Kyle Okposo said, “and they capitalized on them.”
After Florida took the 1-0 lead at the 11:45 mark of the second period, the Bruins jumped on the Panthers for three goals in a span 6:47 to take a 3-1 lead at the second intermission. Boston tied the score 77 seconds after Tkachuk’s goal on a Morgan Geekie shot off a rebound that came after David Pastrnak intercepted an Aaron Ekblad bank pass. After a failed Florida power-play opportunity, Florida’s Gustav Forsling got pressured into making an errant pass. That led to Boston defenseman Mason Lohrei scoring the go-ahead goal with a shot that beat Bobrovsky up high with 3:43 left in the period
And then Bruins defenseman Brandon Carlo put Boston up 3-1 with 21 seconds left in the period with a shot from the top of the right circle with the Panthers out of position to defend the Bruins’ rush. Those three goals came on the only three shots on goal the Bruins took in the period after Florida took the lead. Boston then scored two more goals in the third — Justin Brazeau on a breakaway 7:13 into the final frame and Jake DeBrusk with the Panthers’ net empty with 3:22 left in regulation — to seal the win for Boston.
“I don’t know if we took our foot off the gas, but we made some mistakes and weren’t as hard as we needed to be,” Tkachuk said. “They played well. We will just come out here ready to go, look at it all over, figure out how we can be better.” Added Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov: “Obviously, they’re a good team, so they’re going to push back, and that’s what they did right after our goal. They pushed back, they got a couple goals and then we got chasing a little bit and kind of broke there.
The Panthers ramped up the intensity in the third period, especially in the early minutes by firing 16 shots on goal against Boston goaltender Jeremy Swayman, but nothing got past him. In fact, Florida led the game in shot attempts (86-53) shots on goal (39-29) and scoring chances (41-23) but only had nine high-danger shots on goal. Boston blocked 26 of Florida’s shot attempts, many of which came from the side or from distance, relatively easy shots for a goaltender like Swayman to face.
“That’s why it’s a never-ending learning process for you to continue to kind of cement the things that you need to,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “I didn’t care for our game. I think we can fix a big chunk of the things we did wrong.”
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