Panthers give back home-ice advantage, bench goalie Alex Lyon as Bruins dominate Game 3
FLA Live Arena was dark and the video board high above the ice told the abbreviated story of this Florida Panthers season. “Do you believe?” the deep-voiced narrator asked, setting up the underdog-versus-superpower narrative that, until Friday, hadn’t played out in the slightest. The Panthers split their first two games with the Boston Bruins on the road, and South Florida welcomed them home like a team ready to seize control of this first-round series rather one just happy to be in the postseason and steal one game from the Presidents’ Trophy winners.
Not even two hours later, the Panthers skated slowly off ice for the second intermission, down by multiple goals, to a smattering of boos. Not even another hour later, they finally pulled the plug on Alex Lyon with more than half of the third period left. Finally, the Bruins asserted their might in Game 3 of the first round of the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs and smothered Florida for a 4-2 win in Sunrise.
The Panthers trailed for 57:34 and never recovered from Boston left wing Taylor Hall’s early goal because their offense never mustered much of anything. Florida went 0 of 2 on the power play, had just four shots in the second period with the game still hanging in the balance and lost to the Bruins in just about every statistical category.
The Panthers even lost star defenseman Aaron Ekblad in the second half of the game, holding him out for the entire third period with no immediate update on his status.
“It’s an unfortunate game, but, again, we’ve just got to keep our composure,” Lyon said. “It’s the same message as last game and the same message since we’ve been fighting for our lives for a long time.”
Only two days after Florida stole home-ice advantage by winning Wednesday in Boston, the Bruins snatched it right back to take a 2-1 series lead, even with two forwards, including captain Patrice Bergeron, out of their lineup.
The culprits for the loss weren’t new. The Panthers just did enough in other areas in Game 2 to cover them up.
Lyon for the third straight game gave up a goal on a shot he certainly should have stopped and this time it let Boston play with the lead for more than 95 percent of the game. The power play is now 0 of 7 in the series after again failing to convert. All-Star center Aleksander Barkov, who had been quiet on offense for the first two games of the series, only had two shots and posted a plus-minus of minus-1, on the ice for each of the Bruins’ first two goals — although he did get a late assist with Florida down by multiple goals.
“When you’re not generating offense, you’re looking for those kind of players,” Maurice said. “Coach has got to find the right combination to get him going.”
The Panthers trailed 1-0 at the end of the first period because of a gaffe by Lyon and 2-0 at the end of the second because Boston center Charlie Coyle outmuscled Barkov for a tip-in on the crease.
Florida reshuffled its lines at the second intermission — coach Paul Maurice put wingers Anthony Duclair and Anton Lundell next to Barkov, and played forwards Sam Reinhart, Eetu Luostarinen and Ryan Lomberg together — and it didn’t change much of anything. Superstar right wing David Pastrnak scored on a breakaway with 11:28 left, prompting Maurice to pull Lyon and put in star goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky for the first time in 25 days and then Bobrovsky gave one up with 8:15 left.
“It was not a critique of Alex’s game,” Maurice said, insisting the move was more about getting Bobrovsky some live game action. “If we mount a comeback, it’s not because he’s going to stand on his head.”
For the first time in the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs, this series looked like a matchup between the best team in the NHL and the last team into the playoffs.
The Panthers had more expected goals in each of the first two games and the differential in shots was never more than seven. The Bruins were the biggest favorite of Round 1 after setting a regular-season record for wins and yet the series effectively shifted to a toss-up, according to MoneyPuck.com, after the way Florida played at TD Garden. It made for an electric atmosphere to start Monday, with white giveaway T-shirts draped over every seat and just a peppering of visiting fans among the sellout crowd.
In just 2:26, the complexion changed. Boston defenseman Dimitry Orlov covered half the ice with a stretch pass to Hall, and the winger took a few steps into the offensive zone and launched from the top of the right face-off circle, sneaking an early goal past Lyon.
It was a continuation of the one concerning trend for Lyon, who, at 30, still has fewer than 50 games of NHL experience and yet improbably stole the starting job away from Bobrovsky earlier this month by leading the Panthers on a season-saving six-game winning streak when the two-time Vezina Trophy winner was sick. In Game 1, he gave up a game-winning goal from a similar distance in the second period and then he gave up another goal in garbage time of Game 2.
In those two games, the goaltender was otherwise nearly unbeatable, though. It was not the case in Game 3.
In the second period, Coyle deflected a shot up and over his head to put Boston up 2-0 in a dominant frame. In the third, Lyon again couldn’t get his glove up fast enough to deny Pastrnak in transition. Maurice took him out of the game after giving up three goals on 26 shots.
For much of the last two months, Florida might have been able to win anyway, with its offense humming and still averaging 3.7 goals per game since the start of March. This one was not all on Lyon: The Bruins outshot the Panthers, 35-29, and finished with a 22-16 edge in 5-on-5 scoring chances, and Florida didn’t score until it was down 4-0 in the final six minutes.
“We only have one option,” Lyon said, “and that’s to come back as hard as we can. I don’t think that there’s many options on the table.”
This story was originally published April 21, 2023 at 10:11 PM.
