An uncharacteristic third period collapse turned victory into defeat as the Florida Panthers took a 3-2 loss to the Boston Bruins at TD Garden, ending a six-game winning streak.
After going eight periods without giving up a goal, the Cats surrendered three in a 7:47 span of the final frame to blow a two-goal lead.
Dmitry Kulikov opened the scoring with his fourth of the season by blasting a slap shot by Jeremy Swayman after Sam Bennett’s offensive zone faceoff win 4:27 into the first.
It would take just over forty-minutes to get another goal and that came off the stick of rookie Mackie Samoskevich, who one-timed a pass from Seth Jones past Swayman from the left circle with the Panthers enjoying a five-on-three advantage.
A few minutes later, a tripping call on Jones opened the door and Boston cashed in to halve the deficit when new Bruin Casey Mittelstadt found David Pastrnak open in front and he beat Bobrovsky upstairs at the 8:56 mark. The second assist on the power-play goal went to Elias Lindholm.
Mason Lohrei equalized with 6:09 remaining in the period when he took possession of a terrible Kulikov turnover and whipped a wrister home from the high slot. The Panthers had a chance to exit the zone after battling along the boards, but Kulikov gagged up the puck for no reason.
The decisive goal came at 16:43 after another errant pass in the defensive zone. Nikita Zadarov passed down low to Pastrnak along the right boards and he spun away from Gustav Forsling before backhanding a feed in to front to Pavel Zacha, who was able to send a shot through Bobrovsky’s legs to give the Bruins the win.
No excuses, but this was a bit of a case of the law of averages finally catching up to Bobrovksy and the Panthers, who were due to give up some goals. Unfortunately, the offense didn’t do enough, producing just two goals on 28 shots, to overcame a couple of costly turnovers in the end game. A quick whistle on an apparent Sam Reinhart goal didn’t help either. The Cats will try to shake off this frustrating loss on Thursday night when the pay a visit to the Toronto Maple Leafs, in what will be a key game in the chase for first place in the Atlantic Division.
Tea & Honey
- David Pastrnak earned First Star honors for his one goal, one assist performance. The goal got Pastrnak to the 80-point plateau for the sixth time in his career.
- Dmitry Kulikov stepped up (for the most part) in the absence of suspended Aaron Ekblad. Kulikov, who scored on his only shot, finished with a game-high four blocks and was credited with three hits.
- Mackie Samoskevich notched his 12th goal and tied Aleksander Barkov with a team-high four shots, but in addition to being the one who turned the puck over, he left Pavel Zacha, who scored the game-winner, open in front to help on Pastrnak.
- Casey Mittelstadt, acquired from Colorado on trade deadline day, has collected an assist in each of his two games with the Bruins.
- Niko Mikkola led the Panthers with four hits and was the only one of the team’s defenders to register two shots on goal.
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