Jeremy Swayman stopped 38 shots and the Boston Bruins got goals from a quintet of different players in a 5-1 victory over the Florida Panthers in Game 1 at Amerant Bank Arena.
Playing for the first time in a week, the Panthers got off to a good start, but required some big saves from Sergei Bobrovsky as the first period wore on to get to the dressing room in a scoreless tie.
Matthew Tkachuk would briefly give the Cats the lead 11:45 into the second. Aleksander Barkov fed Tkachuk after a Boston turnover and he let go of a wrist shot that found its way through the legs of Hampus Lindholm and beat Swayman high blocker side.
The Bruins would score off a similar turnover 1:07 later to even it up. After David Pastrnak claimed an errant Aaron Ekblad bounce pass off the boards, he found Pavel Zacha open down low. Bobrovsky challenged and foiled Zacha, but in doing so, his left leg swept the puck to Morgan Geekie, who ripped a shot in just under the cross bar.
Boston would take the lead 3:25 later by the hemming the Panthers in their own zone. Zacha sent a short pass to Parker Wotherspoon at the blue line and he spotted Mason Lohrei wide-open in the left circle. Lohrei unleashed a perfectly placed wrister for his first career postseason goal. Great shot by Lohrei, but Bobrovsky made himself small and left too much of a target up high.
New dad Brandon Carlo made it a two-goal game with 21 seconds left in the frame when he joined the offense late to take a sweet crossing pass from Charlie Coyle and snapped a shot off the plumbing and in. The secondary assist on this huge and untimely goal went to Trent Frederic, who got a piece of a 50/50 puck in a race with Gustav Forsling, allowing it to end up on Coyle’s stick.
The Panthers flat-out dominated the early portion of the third period, but couldn’t put the puck past Swayman. A beautiful Barkov pass left Tkachuk with an open net that he missed wide. Big-time missed opportunity.
A savvy time out call by Jim Montgomery helped defuse Florida’s momentum and the Bruins hammered another nail into the coffin when Lohrei moved the puck up the boards to James van Riemsdyk and he sprung Justin Brazeau. Brazeau powered to the net with Ekblad in pursuit and finished on the backhand to essentially end it at the 7:13 mark. There was a missed high-sticking call in the Boston end as this play was developing, so that didn’t help…
Jake DeBrusk completed the scoring with an empty-netter from Brad Marchand at 16:38.
The Panthers alternated between looking rusty, like world-beaters or just plain sloppy. There was a lot of careless play with the puck in both zones that needs to be cleaned up. That said, the game was a lot closer than the score indicated in my opinion. Florida put a lot of pucks to the net, but the weren’t able to capitalize on any rebounds and too many good chances went wide. They’ll need to be sharper on Wednesday to avoid going down two games.
Tea & Honey
- First Star Jeremy Swayman was simply outstanding for the Bruins. He set the tone with a big save on Anton Lundell’s rebound chance in the opening minute and the only goal the Panthers scored was unstoppable. Swayman has not given up more than two goals in any of seven playoff games.
- After a strong first half, Sergei Bobrovsky gave up the four goals on just five shots over a span of 15:21 to allow the Bruins to pull away. He’s going to have to better than that to match Swayman.
- Matthew Tkachuk fourth of the playoffs extended his point streak to six games, which is the longest to begin a postseason in franchise history. Tkachuk leads the Cats in scoring with 10 points.
- The Bruins outhit the Panthers 69-54. Charlie Coyle and Patrick Brown led Boston with seven apiece. Tkachuk and Kevin Stenlund had six each for the Cats.
- There were no power-play goals in the game, with the teams combing for five man-advantage opportunities.