Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad activated down low and untouched to cap a dominant shift for Florida's first goal, scored 6:25 into the first period, and Nick Bjugstad added their second goal against Anton Khudobin less than three minutes later.
It was the lone bad stretch of what was an otherwise clean game from the Bruins despite the 3-0 final that favored the surging Panthers on Thursday night.
The Bruins peppered Panthers netminder James Reimer for 46 shots, but found nothing but pads and body in just their second shutout against this season. This frustration came with the Black and Gold offense often deferring or looking for that one extra pass that was not there, or putting themselves between the circles but failing to finish. This negated the positives that should have come with their limiting of the Panthers to almost zero quality chances against the overactive Khudobin after the first two strikes against.
But showed the dangers that come with a redeveloped habit of digging into early holes.
Despite a 7-4-0 record over their last 11 games, which has helped keep them in the hunt for the top seed in the Eastern Conference even in the absence of Patrice Bergeron and Charlie McAvoy, the B's have found themselves trailing in 237 of their last 664 minutes.
That means that the Bruins have been playing from behind 37 percent of the time.
They've obviously turned many of those deficits into wins -- Tuesday's comeback against the Hurricanes was perhaps the best example of exactly that -- but it also takes the shorthanded Bruins away from what's made them an NHL monster this season.
When scoring first this season, the Bruins are a staggering 26-2-5. That ranks as the 8th-best winning percentage in the entire league. And while it's obviously worth noting that the Bruins have the best winning percentage in the NHL when their opponents score first (they're .500, with an 18-15-3 record), it's just tough to fight your way into comeback wins every other game this time of year. Especially when you talk about the B's injury woes, which worsened Tuesday with injuries to Zdeno Chara and Jake DeBrusk, and with Torey Krug obviously muscling through a minor ailment.
With limited bodies on deck, a laughably bad match penalty handed to David Backes for his hit on Vincent Trocheck late in the first period did not help their situation, either.
"We didn't close it off and then decision-making happens, as they get closer to the net. You need a save in one of those first two [goals], just the way it is. You can get behind one, [if] you start getting behind two every night it's problematic and all of a sudden turns into three tonight," Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy admitted after the loss. "That was an area we need to be better in. At the end of the night it wasn't our night in the offensive end. As you look at it now there's a lot of pucks bouncing around that we just couldn't corral and give them credit, give their goaltender credit.
"But sometimes it bounces your way, sometimes it doesn't."
Up next for the Bruins? A showdown with the East-leading Lightning.
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