Not all undefeated teams are created equal. The Bruins technically beat a pair of them over the weekend, but no one was about to mistake the Sabres or Sharks for Stanley Cup contenders -- no matter what their early records were.
On Wednesday, the Bruins faced an unbeaten team whose record is not misleading: the Florida Panthers. And they got a bit of a rude awakening, falling 4-1 to the now 7-0-0 Panthers.
On Friday, the Bruins got away with some early sloppy play against Buffalo and cruised to a 4-1 win anyways. On Sunday, they opened the door for a Sharks comeback with an uninspiring third period, but still managed to hang on for a 4-3 victory.
When they played sloppy and sluggish and made mistakes Wednesday, the Panthers eviscerated them.
The Bruins actually got off to a strong start against Florida, dominating much of the first period. They opened the scoring 10:37 in when a strong forecheck from Jack Studnicka -- getting his opportunity as second-line center -- forced a turnover that led to a goal for Charlie Coyle, whose centering pass banked in off a Panther.
Four minutes later, though, the first big mistake came, as the Panthers somehow came out of a 2-on-5 situation during a line change with a goal. Sam Reinhart won a 1-on-2 battle against Charlie Coyle and Derek Forbort and then set up Mason Marchment, who came off the bench and did not get picked up by Taylor Hall, Erik Haula or Connor Clifton as he moved into the slot.
What could have been just one bad moment instead snowballed into a whole bad period -- one in which Boston got outshot 14-2 -- in the second. The Panthers made it 2-0 just over two minutes in as the Bruins’ third defense pairing’s tough night continued. Reinhart danced around Forbort before centering a pass that Eetu Luostarinen was able to bury thanks to Clifton losing track of him in front of the net.
It wasn’t just depth players like Forbort and Clifton who struggled, though. David Pastrnak had an especially tough night when it came to turning the puck over, doing so multiple times on a power play shortly after Florida made it 2-1. One errant pass led to a 2-on-0 the other way that easily could have and probably should have resulted in a goal.
The top line as a whole struggled all night, getting outshot 8-4 and outscored 1-0 at 5-on-5 while losing its matchup with the Panthers’ top line of Carter Verhaege, Aleksander Barkov and Anthony Duclair.
After its promising start and the opening goal, the second line of Studnicka, Coyle and Taylor Hall didn’t get much going the rest of the night. Matt Grzelcyk committed a brutal D-zone turnover that led to a quality chance against. Even Charlie McAvoy got caught too far up ice on Florida’s third goal of the game.
“All the things we did well in the first period, specifically manage the puck against a good offensive team, we did the exact opposite in the second,” said Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy. “It started right away. Below the goal line, breakouts, got pinned in our end, forcing plays, mismanaging pucks, power play. … It just snowballed.”
Simply put, the Panthers are just too good of a team to make that many mistakes against. The Bruins got away with some sloppiness at times against the likes of Buffalo and San Jose. Wednesday offered a reminder that it’s not going to fly against truly good teams like Florida.
The Bruins won’t have to wait long to test themselves again. They take on the 5-0-0 Carolina Hurricanes (a team much closer to the Panthers than the Sabres or Sharks) on Thursday, then face Florida again on Saturday.
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