The Florida Panthers are without Sasha Barkov and Brad Marchand and they were on the second half of a back-to-back when they met the Bruins at TD Garden on Sunday.
But a win over the Panthers these days, in any iteration, is nothing to be dismissed.
With hostilities flashing early and often, the B’s grabbed an early lead and never let go, beating the Panthers, 4-1, in the Sunday matinee. The refs dished out 126 penalty minutes, including seven misconducts.
The B’s were not able to beat the Panthers last year (0-2-1), despite the then-defending Stanley Cup champs being diminished by injury and missing the playoffs. The win was good for the B’s psyche as well as their race for the Atlantic Division playoff race.
The B’s had four different goal scorers, Jeremy Swayman (40 saves) was excellent and the B’s recorded their seventh straight win at home.
Playing their chief tormentors of the past four seasons for the first time this season, the B’s began with a bang. Before the first TV timeout, there were two Boston goals, two fights and a 2-0 Bruin lead.
In just the B’s second division game of the season, Nikita Zadorov and Brady Tkachuk got things going when they dropped the gloves off the opening faceoff. Both gave as good as they got before before Zadorov finally forced Tkachuk to the ice.
The B’s got a quick power play after that which they did nothing with but they got a gift goal at 4:53. Elias Lindholm gained the Florida zone and fooled Jacob Markstrom with a long snap shot. It broke through Markstrom’s pads and skittered toward the goal. Markstrom leapt back and smother it with his glove. The original call was “no goal” but after a lengthy review, it was ruled that it did in fact cross the line. It was Lindholm’s seventh of the year, second on the B’s only to David Pastrnak.
Then Mikey Eyssimont continued his scoring ways that he started in the AHL, where had 13 goals in eight games. Operating behind the Panthers net, he came out from an attempt to jam it home. The first try failed but Markstrom could not control the rebound. Eventually Eyssimont, called up for the injured James Hagens, backhanded it home for the 2-0 lead at 6:11.
Off the ensuing faceoff, Mark Kastelic put up the dukes with Garnet Hathaway, who delivered a hit on Pastrnak earlier in the game.
At that point, it seemed the refs decided to lower the temperature in the game. A total of seven minors were called in the first. First the low tolerance helped the B’s, then it didn’t.
They were given a lengthy 5-on-3 with both Sam Bennett and Aaron Ekblad in the box. At 15:59, Morgan Geekie wired home his fourth in as many games on a blistering one-timer from the below the left dot.
But Fraser Minten was called for interference at the end of the second penalty and the Panthers finally found the back of the net behind Swayman, who had been superb in the first. Carter Verhaeghe beat Swayman from inside of the circle at 18:05.
That seemed to serve notice that the Panthers, who blew a two-goal lead in Washington on Saturday, were not going to be that easy of an out.
The second period was Markstrom’s opportunity to make up for his early troubles. He made a terrific post-to-post stop on a Geekie PP one-timer and then stoned Lindholm with a blocker stop on a 2-on-1 with Zadorov.
There was no scoring in the second but the B’s defensemen started dropping. First, Charlie McAvoy left the game when, in a scrum, he took a punch from Anton Lundell, drawing a penalty. McAvoy started the power play but soon went to the room.
Then in another scrum with just eight seconds left in the period, Hampus Lindholm was given a 10-minute misconduct for his transgression with Eetu Luostarinen getting the same penalty.
The misconduct giveaway didn’t end there. As the horn sounded, Tkachuk went back at Zadorov and they were both given misconducts.
That put the the B’s down a pair of defensemen to start the third. Fortunately, McAvoy returned for the start of the third. Still, that was not the way the B’s wanted to close out a team like the Panthers.
But just 58 seconds into the period, the B’s extended their lead back to three goals. Frederic Brunet sprang Pavel Zacha for a partial break on his off wing. Markstrom stopped his first shot and then his follow up, but the second rebound went to Pastrnak down low. He delivered it to JJ Peterka, who wasted no time in ripping it over the prone Markstrom.