This time, no buckling under pressure
SUNRISE, Fla. — Under the pressure of seeing their season end, the bruins slipped the hangman’s knot tuesday night, first and foremost by slipping out from under a daunting florida forecheck that stymied the black and Gold over the previous three games.
Quick to move pucks out of their zone right from the start of the night, and finally able to develop a number of bona fide scoring chances, they pinned a 2-1 loss on the Panthers and now have a chance at squaring the best-ofseven series (3-3) friday night on Causeway Street.
Constantly forced to play with the puck in their end — as the Panthers did to the bruins in Games 2, 3, and 4 — eventually turned the ice into a hazardous workplace. fast to win key puck battles, and equally quick to transition out, were the first steps toward the win.
“We had a great first period,” said David Pastrnak, who didn’t score but generated a half-dozen shot attempts, four that made it to the net. “the main thing was to stay in the moment and put in the full 60. overall, I am really proud of the group, the way we played the whole game.”
“Winning one-on-one battles, winning the support numbers,” said coach Jim Montgomery, enumerating the keys to improving the back-end play. “we call it goal-line races, they’re a real good team at it. we think we’re a good team at it. And they’ve been beating us to those spots that don’t allow us to get out. they allow to easy transitions that lead to [offensive-zone] entries like you saw tonight.”
▪ On Monday, before the bruins boarded their charter flight, general manager Don Sweeney noted that his club was short on volume of shots. the math through four games: florida owned a whopping 147-79 shot lead.
It was a lot closer in Game 5. the bruins posted a 12-4 shot lead in the opening period, but were outshot, 2516, over the next 40 minutes.
“We are not a volume-shooting team. In a perfect world, you get both quantity and quality,” Sweeney said Monday, less than 24 hours after his club was outshot, 42-18, on home ice in Game 4. “we have three breakaways [in Game 4] — a chance to extend a lead. [the Panthers] had two. So there were some chances.”
By Sweeney’s eye, his club had to improve its recognition of offensive chances, while keeping its shape on defense. Mission accomplished for the first period, though it didn’t carry through for the entire 60 minutes. the Panthers finished with a 65-48 edge in shot attempts.
“We haven’t had a lot of rebound opportunities in this series,” added Sweeney prior to Game 5. “we need to generate a little bit more of that with the intent of going to the harder areas of the ice. our defense has to be a little more active to be able to get pucks through and change the lanes.”
▪ It was a tense 2-3 minutes on the bruins’ bench when Charlie McAvoy’s goal, the eventual game-winner, went to review for goalie interference.
Only two nights earlier, the bruins saw Sam bennett cross-check Charlie Coyle into Jeremy Swayman —a blatant goalie interference infraction — and pop the tying, 2-2 goal into the net. that goal was allowed to stand.
You could almost hear the bruins murmuring, “this one better count,” as they sat on their bench for the review in Game 5.
“My thoughts were, make sure you send the right message to the bench no matter what happens,” said Montgomery, asked what he was thinking during the review. “It’s, ‘hey, we’ve got to get one on the power play, let’s just keep playing next play, next shift.’ It hasn’t been going our way. It was nice that one did.”
“Not good things,” said Coyle, asked what was running through his mind during the review. “You never know what’s going to happen and you just try to, on the bench, say that whatever happens here, we’re scoring again. And doing it the right way. You can’t dwell on anything. You just have to have the right mind-set if it goes our way, great, and if not, we’re still coming. we had to have that mind-set to overcome anything, be relentless, and no one’s going to stop.”
▪ The Panthers were caught for diving (technically, it is embellishing) when Morgan Geekie put a light crosscheck on Anton lundell late in the first period. lundell went down like Sonny liston. Geekie was whistled off for a cross-check, initially looking like the bruins would have to kill a penalty, but the ref took off lundell for the fake job.
An animated Montgomery could be seen behind the bench later making an exaggerated diving motion when the Panthers were not whistled for another embellishment at 12:24 of the second. bruins defenseman Mason lohrei instead was sent to the box for hooking Eetu luostarinen, who took a pratfall when tapped with lohrei’s stick.
“I just think in the league, in general, embellishment is going up,” said Montgomery. “Players are getting better and better at grabbing their heads, snapping their heads back, getting hooked and going with the hook and jumping back. when I was growing up, [Philadelphia’s] billy barber was known the best for it and drew a lot of penalties because of it. It makes it hard on the refs because you don’t know if a guy was really high-sticked or was just trying to get a call.”