Three reasons why the Bruins lost their second-round playoff series against the Panthers originally appeared in NBC Sports Boston
BOSTON – The Bruins fought hard against the Panthers in their Eastern Conference second-round playoff series, but Florida had plenty of talent and depth.
The result?
A Season-ending 2-1 loss to the Bruins in Game 6 at TD Garden on Friday night.
Bruins goaltender Jeremy Swayman recorded a .917 save percentage in six games. The only goalie with a better save percentage in the second round is Igor Shesterkin (0.924) of the New York Rangers. Swayman has conceded two goals or less in three of six games, including each of the last two. He did his job.
So what did it end up costing the Bruins in the second round? Here are three key areas where they have consistently failed.
Bad special teams
Special teams were one of the main reasons the Bruins eliminated the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round. Boston’s penalty kill resulted in just one goal and their power play scored six times in seven games.
The Bruins were unable to maintain that level of success against the Panthers. Not even close, actually.
The B’s have scored just one power-play goal — a David Pastrnak tally in Game 4 — in 16 opportunities with the man advantage. The penalty kill was also difficult and allowed six goals, including four in Game 3.
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It’s not just that the Bruins couldn’t score on the power play, they also didn’t generate many good looks at the net. The B’s spent 26:19 on the power play and had just 14 shots on net in six games. The power play consistently failed to give the Bruins momentum.
Another problem for the Bruins was staying outside the penalty box. Sure, the officiating was poor at times in this series, but Boston needed to be much more disciplined. You can’t give the Panthers 28 power plays in six games and expect to survive. Florida spent 49:37 on the power play in the series and generated 45 shots and 65 scoring chances in addition to its six goals.
The Panthers used a four-minute power play in Game 3 to increase their lead from 1-0 to 3-0 in the space of a minute.
Special teams have the ability to swing a playoff series, and unfortunately for the Bruins, they were badly outmatched in this facet of the game in the second round.
Even-strength goals were actually tied at 12, but the Panthers had a 7-1 advantage in special teams goals (six power plays, one shorthanded). This is very difficult to overcome.
Lack of punctuation
The Panthers are loaded with scoring depth and elite offensive talent. Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Reinhart are top forwards. Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Bennett are also very good. Florida’s bottom six and its blue line are also capable of scoring goals at a consistent rate.
The Panthers have scored three or more goals in eight of 11 playoff games so far, including three of the six matchups in this series. The Bruins were unable to match that firepower.
The B’s have scored two or fewer goals in each of their last five games. They have failed to score more than two goals in eight of their last nine playoff games overall. Jeremy Swayman’s brilliance in net helped the Bruins overcome their offensive struggles against the Leafs in the first round. Duplicating that feat against a Panthers team that is much better than the Leafs was always going to be a monumental task, although Swayman tried hard.
“The lack of our ability to score in the playoffs, in general — you can’t win every game 2-1,” Boston coach Jim Montgomery said after the game. “We had opportunities. We had five freak drives after two periods (in Game 6). In Game 4, we had several breakaways. Their goaltender was good and we didn’t beat him.”
The Bruins had three breakaways in Game 4 – one each from Danton Heinen, Charlie Coyle and Jake DeBrusk – and a goal from any of them could have changed the outcome, which ultimately was a 3-2 Panthers victory.
The Panthers led the series in nearly every shot and scoring chance metric except high-danger 5-on-5 chances. The ice was consistently tilted in Florida’s favor through six games.
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Only three players scored multiple goals for the Bruins in the second round. Jake DeBrusk, Morgan Geekie and Brandon Carlo found the back of the net twice. David Pastrnak, Pavel Zacha and Charlie McAvoy scored once. James van Riemsdyk, John Beecher, Trent Frederic, Hampus Lindholm and Brad Marchand (four games) failed to score a single goal.
The Bruins’ lack of scoring wasn’t just one or two guys. It was a total team failure.
Problems finishing games
The Bruins have played some very good first periods in this series. In fact, they were ahead after 20 minutes in four of the six games. That was the case again in Game 6 when Pavel Zacha scored with 52.8 seconds left in the first period.
Increasing those leads and finishing the game was a challenge for the Bruins. They only had a multi-goal lead after the series opener. The lead was 2-0 after the first period of Game 4. They ended up losing 3-2.
The Panthers are a tough team to shut down and deserve a lot of credit for weathering the Bruins’ initial flurry early in games, making adjustments and then tilting the ice in their favor in the final two periods.
Florida has outscored Boston 17-3 in the second and third periods in the last five games of the series. Closing out games was a problem for the Bruins during the regular season, and that problem returned in the second round.
