That’s how you keep your season alive. The Florida Panthers and the Boston Bruins put on one of the all-time classic playoff games as the Panthers won 7-5 to tie the series 3-3 and force a high-stakes Game 7.
Now matter what happens next, the effort of the Florida Panthers has put on display deserves to be highly commended.
In what was another do or die game for Florida, the Panthers fought tooth and nail against every Boston attack to not only comeback from two 3rd periods deficits and even the series, but also seize all the momentum ahead of Game 7. And, even though it’s debatable if the Panthers should have won this game, there can be no debate as to the heart and determination they’ve against what should have been an insurmountable opponent.
If you’ve been following the NHL even remotely this season, then you would know all about the Bruins and their record-breaking season. This is a team that broke two of the most phenomenal in NHL history this year as they broke both the single season wins record (previously held by the 1997-98 Red Wings and the 2018-19 Lightning) and the points record (previously held by the 1977-78 Canadiens), while also easily winning the President’s Trophy and their division.
With the return of team legends Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, the mid-season additions of Garnet Hathaway, Dmitry Orlov, and Tyler Bertuzzi, the healthy comebacks of Brad Marchand, Charlie McAvoy, and Matt Grzelcyk, the Vezina-worthy goaltending of Linus Ullmark, and finally the excellence of David Pastrňák’s 60+ goal season, there wasn’t a team in the league that could contend with them. Or so everyone believed.
Yet, even if some random person predicted the Bruins would fall short of their quest for the cup, nobody thought they’d be in a winner-take-all situation with the Panthers!
After winning the President’s Trophy last year and making the huge trade for Matthew Tkachuk in the offseason, the Panthers have had one of their worst seasons in the last decade. Sure, they weren’t awful as they’ve been in the early part of the 2010’s, but they underperformed all of their lofty preseason expectations. Badly.
Remember, they only made the playoffs by a single point, despite being the best team in hockey last season, and were the 17th ranked team in the NHL. Therefore, if the NHL had a 1-16 format instead of a 1-8 per conference seeding, the Panthers would have missed out on the playoffs all together. So, thinking that the Panthers would roll over and let the all-conquering Bruins win in 4 or 5 games would have been very understandable seeing as the Bruins “had 50 more points than us (the Panthers)” in Matthew Tkachuk’s words.
But quitting is clearly not in the Panthers’ nature.
After going down 3-1, the Panthers have been relentless in their forechecking and have grounded down the Bruins defensemen, forcing them into uncharacteristically bad turnover. It’s been the primary reason why they’ve won the last two games as the Panthers forwards have been getting “Grade A” scoring chances at least 10 times a game…which has made up for their rather poor defensive play.
Now, even though the Bruins defense has been very in every single game this series, I can’t praise the Panthers own defenders too much as they’ve given up 8 goals and allowed over 81 shots on goal in their last two wins. It’s a good thing Sergei Bobrovsky is finally earning that $10M salary as otherwise the Bruins would have taken this series two games ago, though by a score line to the effect of 5-4 as Ullmark has been awful of late!
So, if you’re a Bruins fan, there’s that nugget to hold onto for hope as the Bruins can win Game 7 as long as they halve their turnovers and either get Ullmark back into his Vezina-worthy form or start Jeremy Swayman. I mean, the offense is clearly doing their jobs with 8 goals scored in the last two elimination games.
Still, the momentum is all in the Panthers’ corner as they just have to win one more game of hockey to pull off one of the greatest upsets in NHL history!
Images Source: Featured Image:
