The Bruins are not going to enjoy Thursday’s video session to review their 6-1 Game 2 loss to the Panthers.
The Panthers certainly had a strong response after losing Game 1 and were the better team for most of Game 2. They undoubtedly deserved to win.
But prior to things really getting out of hand in the third period – both on the scoreboard and in terms of penalty minutes – the Bruins did plenty to beat themselves while it was still a game, with defensive-zone breakdowns preceding just about all of Florida’s goals.
The Bruins led 1-0 after one, but the first of several breakdowns allowed the Panthers to tie the game 1:56 into the second. Jeremy Swayman came out to play the puck behind his net. Derek Forbort was clearly expecting his goalie to move the puck to him, as he drifted towards the far corner.
Swayman instead went the other way and slid the puck to Parker Wotherspoon, who had more pressure to deal with. He threw the puck up the boards, but Panthers defenseman Brandon Montour kept it in the zone. Forbort was unable to get back to the front of the net in time, and Steven Lorentz was left all by himself in front to deflect Montour’s shot past Swayman.
Eight minutes later, the Panthers took the lead. Charlie McAvoy whiffed on a breakout pass up the boards, leading to extended offensive-zone time for Florida and continuing a bizarre recent trend for the Bruins’ No. 1 defenseman. McAvoy lost his stick on the play and was then unable to tie up the goal-scorer, Aleksander Barkov, on a rebound chance in front.
The Bruins nearly got to the second intermission down by just one, but more defensive-zone issues led to a backbreaking Florida goal with just a couple ticks left on the clock. Johnny Beecher won a defensive-zone faceoff with 12 seconds to go, but then Brad Marchand couldn’t get the puck out of the zone and McAvoy inadvertently screened Swayman on a Gustav Forsling rocket from the point.
If the Bruins had any hope left, it quickly vanished as the Panthers pushed it to 4-1 just 1:28 into the third. Once again, the Bruins couldn’t get out of their own way. The Panthers chipped a puck into the Bruins’ zone that Swayman and Brandon Carlo both clearly expected to be called icing.
In their defense, it should have been icing. But it was waved off early enough that they should have had plenty of time to adjust. Instead, Swayman and Carlo were late reacting and nearly ran into each other. Swayman wound up leaving the puck in a tough spot for his defenseman, and Carlo then got knocked down by a forechecking Barkov for a turnover. Seconds later, the puck was in the back of the net.
Bruins coach Jim Montgomery decided to pull Swayman and put in Linus Ullmark at that point, although he said after the game that the decision had more to do with the team than Swayman himself. It also bought Swayman a little bit of rest and allowed Ullmark to see his first game action in two weeks.
“The workload hasn’t played into Jeremy Swayman. The workload played into our effort tonight,” Montgomery said. “We didn’t have juice tonight. ... Swayman was terrific.”
He was in the sense that there really wasn’t much Swayman could have done to stop any of the four shots that beat him. But it is fair to question the two mixups between him and a defenseman and whether Swayman was at fault on one or both.
The Bruins didn’t do themselves any favors at the other end of the ice, either. They had chances in the first to take a bigger lead, but Marchand and Beecher both missed empty nets and Charlie Coyle hit a post. Maybe if the Bruins had led 2-0 or 3-0 after one, the game might have gone differently.
Instead, the rest of the game devolved into an abject disaster, with the Panthers outshooting Boston 26-9 over the final 40 minutes. At one point, the Bruins went 16 minutes of game action without a shot on goal, from five minutes left in the second until just over 11 minutes into the third.
There was also a breakdown on the bench that led to the Bruins’ fifth too many men penalty in nine playoff games, a staggering and inexcusable number. This one came off a situation that has bitten the Bruins before.
Carlo was in the penalty box. When he got out, because he’s a defenseman, the Bruins briefly had three defensemen and two forwards on the ice. One of the defensemen had to change off for a forward, but when he did, another defenseman also jumped on the ice, leading to the too many men.
“It falls on me in the end,” Montgomery said. “We tell people who's up, and they're making mistakes, so my clarity with who's up is obviously failing our team.”
In Game 1, the Bruins took advantage of a sloppy Panthers performance and cruised to a 5-1 victory. In Game 2, the exact opposite happened. Oh, and the teams combined for 136 penalty minutes in the third period, including a fight between superstars David Pastrnak and Matthew Tkachuk.
Good luck predicting what happens in Game 3 at TD Garden on Friday.