Panthers fall to the brink of another early exit after going 0 for 2 at home vs. Bruins
The lesson from their first two games of the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs, the Florida Panthers though, was the Panthers could hang with the Boston Bruins. They were the last two Presients’ Trophy winners and, at least in the first two games of their first-round series, those trophies told the story of the matchup more than the 43-point gap between the two teams in the regular season.
Less than a week later, the story has changed. The series shifted back to South Florida for two games this weekend and instead of seizing control, the Panthers are now on the brink of elimination from the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Bruins blew out Florida, 6-2, in Game 4 on Sunday to sweep the two games in Sunrise and move one win away from Round 2.
“They’re a good team,” defenseman Radko Gudas said. “They have this unbelievable record for a reason.”
Florida trails 3-1 in Round 1 and the Panthers’ season could be over as soon as Wednesday when they play Game 5 in Boston. Florida has only gotten past the first round of the Cup playoffs once since 1996 and will need an incredible turnaround to avoid another early exit.
The Panthers unloaded everything they had on the Bruins in Game 4 and it still wasn’t enough. They made changes to their lineup and started Sergei Bobrovsky for the first time in 27 days, finally benching fellow goaltender Alex Lyon, 30, after 11 straight starts. They outshot Boston, 45-31, and mostly controlled possession. The game even ended with Matthew Tkachuk and All-Star goaltender Linus Ullmark nearly coming to blows, Boston fed up with Florida’s superstar right wing and the Panthers frustrated by another loss to Ullmark’s Bruins.
Florida started by taking the first 10 shots of the game, but never led after committing the first penalty of the game with 10:49 left in the first period.
It flipped the game and maybe the series. Bruins left wing Brad Marchand scored 34 seconds into the power play to put Boston up 1-0 — Bobrovsky made the initial save, but couldn’t find the puck between his legs — and the Bruins never gave up the lead.
Neither team has pulled off a comeback yet in this series and the lead has never even changed hands.
“I loved our start,” coach Paul Maurice said. “The game got away at the end by score, but not by scoring chances, necessarily.”
Panthers make a goalie change and are down a star defenseman for Game 4 vs. Bruins
Boston finished with a 33-30 advantage in scoring chances and 20-10 edge in high-danger chances, although the gap was less pronounced in 5-on-5 play. Special teams, ultimately, are what have doomed the Panthers in this series.
The Bruins went up 2-0 with another power play goal in the second period and are now 4 of 14 in the series. Florida finally scored its first power-play goal of Round 1 in the third period, when it was already down by two goals, and is now 1 of 11 in the postseason and 2 of 42 in the last two playoffs.
The Panthers feel like these have been competitive games — other than Game 3, they’re not far off — and it hasn’t mattered because Boston has dominated the special-teams and goaltending battles.
After Lyon powered Florida into the playoffs by winning 6 of 8 to close out the regular season, Maurice finally turned back to Bobrovsky for Game 4 after benching Lyon in the third period of Game 3. The move didn’t make a difference: Bobrovsky gave up five goals on 30 shots.
Lyon, 30, became an unlikely hero for the Panthers last month when he stepped in while Bobrovsky was battling an illness and carried Florida into the postseason, even though he only had 31 prior games of NHL experience.
“Alex has run long and hard, and there’s a mental and physical fatigue that comes with that,” Maurice said. “With two days off, we wanted to put what we thought would be the freshest goalie into the net tonight.”
The move to Bobrovsky was one of a handful of changes Maurice made. He also stuck forward Zac Dalpe in for right wing Anthony Duclair on the third line and put Casey Fitzgerald into the lineup with fellow defenseman Aaron Ekblad out with an injury. Dalpe and Fitzgerald helped give the Panthers a jolt early, but they were never going to be what could wake this slumbering offense.
Tkachuk scored and had an assist. Star defenseman Brandon Montour had two assists. Center Sam Bennett scored a goal and left wing Carter Verhaeghe had an assist. No one else — including All-Star center Aleksander Barkov — recorded a point and no forward outside the Verhaeghe-Bennett-Tkachuk line had more than three shots.
“It’s our job to just keep going, just keep playing the right way,” Barkov said. “When they score goals, we don’t want to open up. We want to keep going the same way. We have the good energy going, so we want to keep doing that.”
Tkachuk’s goal cut the Bruins’ lead to 2-1 in the second period and Boston answered less than seven minutes later to go back up 3-1. Bennett’s goal cut the Bruins’ lead to 3-2 in the third and Boston again answered in less than two minutes to make it 4-2.
With more than half the series done, Florida has more 5-on-5 high-danger chances than the Bruins and it hasn’t mattered. Boston is making the important plays on special teams and on its most dangerous chances. It’s why the Bruins were one of the best teams in NHL history and the Panthers struggled to just make the playoffs. The difference is finally starting to manifest itself.
“We know they’re a good team,” Gudas said. “I don’t think it changes a lot for us for the mentality.”
