That was an utter trouncing. The Boston Bruins learned playoff hockey is totally different to regular season hockey as the Florida Panthers tied the series 1-1 with one of the most convincing wins seen in the playoffs so far.
The B’s just found out winning 65 regular season games, the most any team in NHL history has ever achieved, is absolutely worthless when trying to win a single playoff game against even the “worst” ranked team.
After losing a narrow thriller in Game 1, the Florida Panthers showed why they were one of the hottest teams heading into the playoffs as they humiliated the 65-12-5 Boston Bruins 6-3 to not only even the series at 1 a piece, but also give them all the momentum and home ice advantage for Games 3 and 4. And, being completely honest, the Panthers are the team that deserves to win this series at this current (key word here) moment.
I feel like we’re all having Deja Vu as the Boston Bruins are making the EXACT SAME MISTAKES the 2018/19 Tampa Bay Lightning, who were the previous joint-team win record holders with 62, made against the Columbus Blue Jackets in the 2019 playoffs.
Just like how the Bruins have been in the opening two games, the Lightning were plagued by key injuries to their star players (Bergeron hasn’t featured yet), they were extremely passive against a physical, in-your-face Blue Jackets team, and they simply relied far too heavily on their superior skillset to defeat a Blue Jackets team that sacrificed everything to win.
And that’s exactly what has happened in this series so far…but with the added twist that Panthers are a much better team than the 2018/19 Blue Jackets.
Sure, Florida finished the regular season as the 8th seed in the East and only the 17th best team in the entire NHL (which would have had them miss the playoffs if the league implemented a 1-16 playoff format), but this team still has the vast majority of players that won the 2021/22 President’s Trophy.
Players like Aleksander Barkov (1 PT), Sam Reinhart (1 PT), Sam Bennett (1 G, +2 +/1, 7 SOG in one game), Aaron Ekblad (6 SOG, +1 +/-, 3 hits), Anton Lundell (5 SOG, 0 +/1), Carter Verhaeghe (1 G, 4 SOG), and Brandon Montour (2 G, +3 +/-, 5 hits)), all of whom were sensational just a year ago, have been extremely impressive in this series so far as they’ve implemented a tough, ground-and-pound forechecking style that has withered the Bruins backline.
And, when you add in a juggernaut superstar like Matthew Tkachuk (1 G, 2 A, 3 PTS, 5 SOG, 5 hits) to this core, it makes it almost impossible to beat this team without getting into the mud with them and grinding them down out at their own game.
In fact, this heavy-hitting forecheck offense is pretty much the sole reason why the Panthers have caused 26 Bruins giveaways (11 of those by defenseman), while they’ve also racked up 15 takeaways in the two games. And, obviously, when you have over 45 turnovers in two games, you can’t really expect to be in a series.
Thus, the Bruins are lucky Ullmark played on his head in Game 1 as the Panthers threw everything they had at him but were blanked by his 31-save, .938 SV% performance. Unfortunately for Bruins fans, he couldn’t come up with the same heroics last night.
Whether it was Brandon Montour’s bullet shots from the blue line, Same Bennett’s power forward drives at the net, Eric Staal’s (1 G, +2 +/-) snipes in the slot, or Carter Verhaeghe’s one-timers on odd-man rushes, the Panthers broke through Ullmark’s time and again as they were only the third team all year long (Ottawa on Oct. 18th, Chicago on March 14th) to score 6 goals against the Bruins.
And I can’t say any of them were undeserved as the Bruins just weren’t willing to sacrifice enough to prevent the Panthers from crashing the net.
I can’t count how many times I saw a Bruins defender whiff on a breakout pass as they were too afraid/focused on avoiding the incoming forecheck, rather than ensuring the puck got out of their zone. I know the Bruins ended up with more hits than the Panthers (31 vs. 29), but there was at least 15-20 missed hits the Panthers tried throwing on the Bruins defense.
And, as I’ve said, those missed hits usually resulted in the Bruins defenders turning the puck over to the Panthers forwards for them to score easy goals, so, they’re probably okay with getting “outhit”. This series has been a masterclass in why hard work and dedication will always beat phenomenal skills by the Florida Panthers. For now.
Even with all of this doom and gloom for the Bruins, the series is most definitely not over yet as even though they were trounced last night, they still had some missed opportunities that could have changed the whole narrative.
David Pastrňák (1 G, 4 SOG, -1 +/-) has been off as he missed a huge chance to put the Bruins up 3-2 after Tyler Bertuzzi (1 G, 2 A, 3 SOG, 0 +/-) jammed home the tying goal, while Taylor Hall (1 G, 3 SOG, -1 +/-), Charlie Coyle (0 PTS, 4 SOG, -1 +/-), David Krejci (1 A, 4 SOG, -3 +/-), Hampus Lindholm (0 PTS, 3 SOG, -2 +/-, 3 hits), and Pavel Zacha (2 A, 5 SOG, -1 +/-) have been extremely quiet so far.
HC Jim Montgomery has to rotate some of these lines (ex: reuniting the Czech line with Pastrňák-Krejci-Zacha, putting Lindholm with a new, more physical defensive partner like Clifton, getting Taylor Hall a new winger and/or center) and he has to bring in A.J. Greer, Jakub Lauko, and/or Matt Grzelcyk as some of the returning additions (ex: Derek Forbert, Nick Foligno) have been woeful.
Oh, and he has to tell these players to stop being afraid of the Panthers forecheckers and TAKE A HIT to make a play!
That’s probably the most important adjustment the Bruins have to make or else this series is over, and history will repeat itself.
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