Bruins late heroics effectively end Florida's playoff hopes
The Florida Panthers didn’t really ‘need’ a win to stay within the realm of playoff possibilities in the Eastern Conference. With a loss to the Boston Bruins on Tuesday night, the Panthers still technically have a chance to make the playoffs. But it’s not looking good following a 3-2 regulation loss to Boston.
With 1:09 left in the third period Bruins forward Milan Lucic fired the laser … err wrister past Panthers goaltender Roberto Luongo, which prevented Florida (which came into the game four points back of Boston with six games left) from gaining any sort of ground or limiting losses with a possible overtime or shootout defeat.
Said captain Willie Mitchell to the Miami Herald:
“We needed a win. That was it,” Willie Mitchell said in soft, reserved tones.
“On to the next one, you know? We’ll be playing our tails off doing everything we can to put points on the board. That’s all we can control. On to the next one.”
I still can’t get over the fact that Willie Mitchell is the captain of this group, in the most awesome way possible, but that’s another story for another day.
It was a nice effort from the Panthers, a team coming off back-to-back dreadful seasons, to produce a year few saw coming – one that went into late March for their non-playoff fate to be sealed.
Per the Miami Herald again:
“We still have a mathematical chance,” coach Gerard Gallant said.
“It’s probably going to take five wins. Can we do it? We just played five outstanding games on the road, went 2-2-1 and could have won all five. We’re going to work hard, battle and see what happens.”
And as the for Bruins, the win was doubly important. Not only did it basically end Florida’s chances of making the playoffs, it kept Boston three points clear of Ottawa with five games left to play. The Senators hamburgled their way to another win over the Detroit Red Wings and have six contests left.
The best case scenario for the Bruins is to try to run out the clock on the Senators. Both teams don’t play one another again.
From the Boston Globe:
“We bounced back,” Zdeno Chara said. “We didn’t play the way we wanted to play in the second and we knew we needed to bounce back. We needed to be much better than we were, and we were. We found a way to be more effective, and we were more ourselves and we found a way to win with two big goals."
And of course it was Lucic who came through – this time playing with rookies Ryan Spooner and David Pastrnak, a sign of the Bruins’ strange mixture this season of veterans and youth that has all been inconsistent but somehow has gotten the job done.
Against Florida, Julien said he was only trying to keep Spooner’s line away from one Florida trio – the one with Aleksander Barkov centering Jonathan Huberdeau and Jaromir Jagr. That meant more opportunities for Lucic, Spooner and Pastrnak to get involved in the third period of a game the Bruins trailed after 40 minutes.
And the Bruins found a way … as the Bruins always do. As for the Panthers, nice try. Wait til next year kids.
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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper
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