Florida Panthers can’t complete comeback as Boston Bruins win Game 5 to extend series
The Florida Panthers knew it wasn’t going to be easy. They knew the Boston Bruins were going to come out desperate and give everything they had. That’s the nature of a team with its season on the line.
And the Bruins did exactly what they needed to do to keep this second-round Stanley Cup playoffs series alive, beating the Panthers 2-1 in Game 5 of the best-of-7 series on Tuesday at Amerant Bank Arena.
“They were real fast and I thought we were trying to move the puck in a certain way that doesn’t really suit our style of game,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “They had a good first period, but the games there, right? ... I never felt we got to the way we look, but even with that, we had our moments.”
The Panthers still lead the series 3-2 and need just one win to advance to the Eastern Conference final against either the New York Rangers or Carolina Hurricanes.
Game 6 between the Panthers and Bruins is Friday at Boston’s TD Garden. Game time and TV information has not yet been announced.
The Panthers never led on Tuesday, only tying the game 1-1 6:23 into the second period on a Sam Reinhart wrist shot from the slot after Florida caused chaos in front of Boston goaltender Jeremy Swayman.
But the Bruins took the lead for good four minutes after that on a Charlie McAvoy wrist shot that beat Sergei Bobrovsky capped a sequence of passes from Trent Frederic and Charlie Coyle. Florida challenged for goaltender interference but the call stood. Morgan Geekie opened scoring for Boston 4:49 into regulation.
The loss, however, didn’t come due to lack of chances.
After failing to generate momentum in the first period, getting outshot 13-4 in the first 20 minutes, the Panthers returned to form in the second and third periods. They challenged Swayman repeatedly — putting up 25 shots on goal and generating 21 scoring chances in the final 40 minutes — but couldn’t get anything past him outside of Reinhart’s goal.
“We knew we needed to play a lot better than that” first period, Panthers captain and top-line center Aleksander Barkov said. “That wasn’t our best in the first. They played well, but we just needed to play better. Everyone knows in this room what we can do.”
Bobrovsky was also stellar in net, making a slew of big saves to keep it a one-goal game.
But the Panthers couldn’t break through and complete the comeback.
And so the series continues.
“You play a seven-game series for a reason,” Reinhart said. “It’s not always going to go your way. You try and learn from it. There are some things we can do a little bit better and we’re gonna learn from it.”
