BOSTON– Aleksander Barkov got past three Bruins defenders to score the go-ahead goal on Sunday night, and Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 16 shots to give the Florida Panthers a 3-2 victory over Boston and a 3-1 lead in the Conference semifinal series. East.
A year after Florida knocked out the record-setting Bruins in the first round en route to the Stanley Cup Final, the Panthers won their third straight and left Boston on the brink of elimination.
Sam Bennett and Anton Lundell also scored for the Panthers, who scored three times in a row to come back from a two-goal deficit. Florida can advance to the Eastern Conference Finals with a win in Game 5 at home on Tuesday night.
Playing without captain and postseason leading scorer Brad Marchand, Boston jumped out to a 2-0 lead on goals from David Pastrnak and Brandon Carlo. Jeremy Swayman made 39 saves for the Bruins.
One game after his hit — or, as the Bruins believe, his punch — knocked Marchand out of Game 4, Bennett scored a contested goal to tie the game at 2 — all about four minutes into the third period. After Swayman saved Lundell, Bennett shoved Boston’s Charlie Coyle, sending him into the goalie, and then threw the puck into the net.
The Bruins challenged, citing goalie interference, but replay confirmed the goal. The NHL is alone among major North American sports in refusing to make referees available to reporters to explain controversial calls.
Boston, which has lost three of its last four regular-season games and sits one point below Florida in the Atlantic Division, now needs to win three in a row — with two on the road — to stay alive in the playoffs.
Pastrnak has scored 47 goals this season but just one on the power play in the last 34 games of the regular season and the first 10 of the playoffs. Boston did not score a goal on the man advantage in its first 11 tries in the Florida series. But Pastrnak launched a 90 mph missile at Bobrovsky shortly after the faceoff after Aaron Ekblad was ejected for interference midway through the first period.
Carlo, who scored in Game 1 just hours after his wife gave birth to their son, made it 2-0 with five minutes remaining in the first game with a seemingly harmless shot from the blue line.
But the Panthers kept shooting the net, outscoring Boston 15-5 in the first period, and it paid off early in the second when Lundell made it a one-goal game five minutes into the second.
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AP NHL Playoffs: and
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