BOSTON, MA — The Bruins juggernaut that ripped through the NHL regular season at a historic clip is finding life to be more challenging in the postseason.
The Bruins lost to the Florida Panthers Wednesday night at TD Garden by a score of 6-3 to even their best of 7 series at a game apiece.
Turnovers were the big issue on the night for Boston. A whopping 16 giveaways, many in the defensive zone leading directly to 3 Panthers goals, all in 5 on 5 situations.
“The turnovers we had tonight were catastrophic,” Jim Montgomery said following the loss.
Linus Ullmark did not have his best game either allowing a season-high five goals on 30 shots faced. He was also a -1.63 goals saved above expected according to moneypuck.com.
Boston was once again without its captain and first line center Patrice Bergeron who remains out with what head coach Jim Montgomery confirmed is an injury, not an illness.
There wasn’t much flow to the first period, slowed by a ton of whistles with neither team generating many high quality scoring chances. The team’s entered the dressing room scoreless after 1.
Florida took the lead less than two minutes into the second period. Sam Bennett cashed in on a brutal turnover in the defensive zone by Brandon Carlo. His shot trickled past Linus Ulllmark putting the Panthers up 1-0.
But the Panthers gave it right back, on the power play no less. Brad Marchand took advantage of a terrible outlet pass attempt by Andrew DuClair and fired a wrister low glove side past Lyon to tie the game at 1.
Marchand doesn't miss those ? pic.twitter.com/lfxmQzsLtO
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) April 20, 2023
Florida took back the lead just over two minutes later when Eric Staal fired one top shelf past Ullmark to give the Panthers a 2-1 lead.
But the Bruins evened things up on the power play. Tyler Bertuzzi tapped home his first career playoff goal on a redirect of a Pavel Zacha one timer to tie the game at 2.
“We tied it up there and we were feeling better about our game,” Marchand said. “I think when we’re good it’s when we continue to stick to the process, and we just got away from it a little bit.”
Bertuzzi gets his first career playoff goal off his skate ? pic.twitter.com/RdXwXm1eCV
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) April 20, 2023
The game didn’t stay tied for long. Just 22 seconds into the third period with the teams playing 4 a side, Brandon Montour fired one past Ullmark from just inside the blue line through an Aleksander Barkov screen to make it a 3-2 score.
The Bruins continued to be careless with the puck in their own zone. A Charlie McAvoy d-zone giveaway led to another Panthers goal, this one by Carter Verhaeghe on a feed from Mathew Tkachuk at 13:02 of the third to make it 4-2 Florida.
“I just think when we fell down 4-2, I didn’t think we regrouped or reset,” Montgomery said. “Most of the year, we’ve been able to take a breath, reset and go back to our game. We didn’t go back to our game when it went 4-2. I thought we got back to our game in the first two periods, every time we fell behind we got back to our game.”
Montour scored his second of the game to make it 5-2 Florida. Eetu Luostarinen added an empty netter to make it 6-2.
Taylor Hall poked a late goal past Lyon to account for the 6-3 final.
Game 3 is Friday night in Florida.
Loose Pucks
- Matt Grzelcyk sat for a second straight game.
- Former Bruins captain and defenseman Zdeno Chara was joined by Russ Hoyt as the fan banner captains.
- While Montgomery wouldn’t say when Bergeron would rejoin the lineup the Bruins head coach did say that Bergeron is “progressing well” for whatever that’s worth.
