Florida Panthers one win away from advancing in Stanley Cup Playoffs after rallying
BOSTON — The Florida Panthers overcame a two-goal deficit to beat the Boston Bruins 3-2 Sunday and take a 3-1 second-round Stanley Cup Playoff series lead.
The Panthers can wrap up the series Tuesday night at 7 when they host the Bruins in Sunrise.
Aleksander Barkov scored the game-winner midway though the second period, driving through the slot off a feed from Kyle Okposo and beating Jeremy Swayman with a wrist shot.
Sam Bennett scored the game-tying goal. Bennett injured Bruins captain Brad Marchand with an apparent sucker punch in Game 3. Boston coach Jim Montgomery told the media it was “his fault” that his team did not go after him that night, but he was unbothered in Game 4.
"You hear it all,” Bennett said. “I got a good taste for it in Toronto, so you just kinda get used to it. It’s playoff hockey. People are going to say what they want. Obviously there are passionate fans here, they are going to cheer for their team and they are going to do whatever they can to pump up their team. And we have our game plan, we know what we need to do and we’re not affected by any of that outside noise.”
Boston rode two quick first-period goals to an early lead. David Pastrnak got things started 8:53 into the game, blasting a slap shot on the power play past Sergei Bobrovsky. Brandon Carlo made it a two-goal game with a knuckleball of a wrist shot with 4:48 to go in the opening frame.
The Panthers outshot the Bruins 15-5 and led 17-2 in scoring chances in the first period, but Swayman made the difference in net.
Anton Lundell finally broke the seal on Florida’s 26th shot of the game with 5:09 to go in the second period, blasting a one-timer off a feed from Evan Rodrigues to make it a 2-1 game.
”It kind of fired up the belief,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said of Lundell’s goal. “It wasn’t going for us around the net. We were playing pretty darn well but the coach hasn’t lost his mind on the critical referee stuff, so it’s just hockey at that point. We’re not involved but Lundell [brought us back.]”
Here are three takeaways from Game 4 as the series shifts back to Florida:
Panthers penalty-killing unit solid without Sam Reinhart
Top penalty-killing forward Sam Reinhart missed the last 15 minutes of the game after taking a shot to the face, and the Panthers recovered nicely without him.
In two kills in the final 10 minutes of the game, the Panthers survived by giving their forwards short shifts and clearing the zone as fast as they could. The Bruins got a golden opportunity to tie things up with 34 seconds to go and their goalie pulled, but they couldn’t capitalize on the 6-on-4.
Reinhart is expected to be “fine” for Game 5, according to Maurice.
“He was just split straight through,” Maurice said. “I thought he had lost some teeth when he’d come off, but he hadn’t.”
Sergei Bobrovsky recovers from shaky first period
Goaltending made the difference on both ends of the ice on Sunday night. While Swayman was mostly spotless in the first period and a half with a heap of action in his end, Bobrovsky proved to be shaky with little going on in his.
Bobrovksy was late getting his blocker over as Pastrnak’s big slap shot sailed past it on Boston’s first goal and third shot of the game. He was not ready for Carlo’s bobbler of a wrist shot on shot five either, albeit it coming fresh off of a failed clearing attempt by Oliver Ekman-Larsson.
He recovered nicely to make the next 13 saves.
"That’s just part of the game,” Bobrovsky said. “I just try to stay in the moment, one shot at a time.”
Anton Lundell steps up
Lundell, 22, proved once again that he can be a big-time player in big-time moments.
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Not only did he get the Panthers going with the big slap shot, but he played big minutes on the penalty kill without Reinhart and continued to suffocate the Bruins on the forecheck.
He was one of Florida’s best players down the stretch.
”We liked the way we were playing in the first period even though they had two goals,” Barkov said. “We liked our chances and just kept going, kept pushing and getting better and then [Lundell’s] line took over, got us going with the goal and we just believed in each other.”
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Panthers rally to beat Bruins, take 3-1 lead in Stanley Cup Playoffs series
