Florida Panthers take 3-1 hit in Game 1 at mighty Boston. Is it already panic-time for Cats? | Opinion
The Florida Panthers flew into Boston to meet this on Game 1 of their NHL first-round playoff series:
It was the national-spotlight game on ESPN Monday night. It was Patriots Day, the Massachusetts state holiday. It was Boston Marathon day. The Red Sox were at Fenway. The city was pulsing with electricity.
Oh, and the Boston Bruins took the ice as, certifiably, only the greatest hockey team ever, based on the all-time NHL records they’d just set for most wins and most points in a season.
That’s all.
The opponent may also have invented water and ice; still checking.
No. 8-seed Florida was skating in as an historic underdog if they could quantify such things.
And that was before the Panthers went and gave the Bruins a one-man advantage Monday night. Which is like offering Jeff Bezos a loan, or Usain Bolt a head start.
Florida had to do everything right, and some things better, to get this thing to seven games, and in Game 1 they fell behind 1-0 a man down, on a power-play goal by David Pastrnak, a mammoth 61-goal scorer in the regular season.
They would lose, 3-1.
It was 2-0 on Brad Marchand’s goal, a shaky one that was not Alex Lyon’s finest moment. (If the team benches Lyon for Sergei Bobrovsky it will convey panic. The question: Would the panic be due, or premature? The decision will say a lot about what the coach thinks of his team’s chances.)
The Panthers were back in it at 2-1 on Matthew Tkachuk’s left-right legerdemain with the stick in the crease.
Florida won big this season on the Tkachuk trade for Jonathan Huberdeau.
“You know the kind of player Matthew is,” said general manager Bill Zito before the game, “and you know we had the need for that type of player.”
He meant toughness. Playoff hockey. Not what coach Paul Maurice calls a “soft-skills team.”
Alas, Boston made it 3-1 on a strange mess at the goalmouth. The puck sat on the Florida goaltender Alex Lyon’s pad,, undetected there by him, and knocked in by Bruin Jake DeBrusk. Goalie interference? No. No challenge by Florida.
In NHL history, Game 1 winners advance in a series 68.3 percent of the time. And none of those 68.3 percent had the record or season Boston has had.
In Florida’s playoff history the Cats are 3-1 advancing off a 1-0 series lead but 1-7 when it’s a 0-1 hole.
Despite all those trends, the mighty opponent and the Game 1 result, do not write off the Panthers’ chances.
I say that.
But the Panthers’ own Tkachuk seems to warn otherwise.
“I don’t even know if ‘underdog’ is a right phrase for us right now, going against that talent and everything they’ve done this year over there,” he said before Game 1. “We have our hands full. We got to play very, very, very well -- if not perfect -- to win a game [in this series].”
Game 2 is back in Beantown Wednesday before two straight in the Sunrise rink.
Florida was 2-2 vs. Boston in the regular season, only outscored by 17-15, one of only two teams to beat the Bruins twice. Monday the Cats had a sizable advantage in shots on goal.
Panthers fans are counting on the Presidents’ Cup Curse renewing itself. In 36 years of winners for the league’s best regular season record only eight have gone on to win the Stanley Cup. The rest (including Florida last year) fell short. No team, with the best record has won it all since Chicago in 2013.
Despite that trend Florida’s underdog role has magnified, but I’d not discount fight left and a rally by the Panthers, who were the NHL’s No. 1 seed just a year ago and finished strong to make the playoffs this time despite a season rife with injuries and salary-cap issues and an adjustment to a new coach.
“We’re going in with some scars, which is good. But they’ve healed,” said Maurice before Game 1. “We survived them. We had some tough stretches this season but there was the mental toughness we needed. That’s what this series is going to be all about.”
Maurice had told his players heading in: “Experience all of it. Take it all in, man. Be nervous. Have the butterflies. Then learn how to deal with that and get back to basics.”
He could repeat that entering Game 2.
Said Sam Reinhart of the Bruins: “The pressure’s still on them.”
Clearly, the Panthers are not satisfied to be a No. 8 seed happy to be here and OK with going out early. Not even if the opponent is the vaunted Bruins.
“This is an opportunity,” said the GM Zito. “This is a beginning.”
Now, though, the pressure on Boston shifts a bit to a Panthers squad that cannot afford a 2-0 hole.
Zito has said before hand he liked opening as the road team.
“I’ve sort of embraced the ideology that you prefer to start on the road,” he’d said. “Everything’s easier, less distractions...”
Then, a pause.
“Now if we pitch two poor outings, I might revisit that, “ he said.
He was smiling, then. Probably not now.
This story was originally published April 17, 2023 at 10:28 PM.
