Five Takeaways from Panthers’ Game 1 loss to Bruins

The 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs is officially underway and the Presidents’ Trophy winning Boston Bruins played host to the Florida Panthers at TD Garden on Monday night for Game 1 of their first round series. 

The Bruins defended their home ice with a 3-1 win over the Panthers; taking a 1-0 series lead. 

Here are the takeaways. 

Battle of the stars

The two best players in this series are David Pastrnak of the Bruins and Matthew Tkachuk of the Panthers. 

Tkachuk and Pastrnak were the only players from the two teams to score 100 points this season, with Pastrnak finishing with 113 and Tkachuk with 109.

The Bruins’ star winger continued in Game 1 what he did all season, score. Following his 61 goal regular season, Pastrnak got his first goal of the playoffs just 5:58 into the first period, with an open net tap in on the power play, putting the Bruins up 1-0.

Like his fellow Atlantic Division All-Star, Tkachuk got his first goal of the playoffs tonight in Boston. Tkachuk jumped in on the forecheck, corralled a loose puck and pulled a backhand forehand move to beat Bruins goalie Linus Ullmark, getting the Panthers on the board. 

Coming into the series we highlighted these two guys as players to watch, they didn’t disappoint tonight. 

Rough bounces for Alex Lyon gave the Bruins breathing room

Florida decided to run with their hot hand in net for Game 1, giving Alex Lyon his first NHL playoff start. 

In Game 1, Lyon made more than a few highlight reel saves. Glove saves, cross crease pad robberies, he made them all.

Unfortunately for Lyon, between all the great saves, there were a few bad bounces here and there that put the Panthers in a hole.

3:41 into the second, Brad Marchand sent a fairly weak wrist shot towards the Panthers’ goal. Lyon fluffed the routine glove save and the puck trickled in, giving the Bruins a 2-0 lead. 

Later in the period with the Bruins leading by just one, it seemed like Lyon had covered a loose puck in his crease, but that wasn’t the case. 

After a few whacks in front, the puck perfectly landed on top of Lyon’s pad and sat there for a few seconds before Jake DeBrusk tapped it in to give the Bruins a 3-1 lead. 

Florida’s top line was awfully quiet

The Panthers top line of Carter Verhaeghe, Aleksander Barkov and Anthony Duclair should have had a bigger impact than they did tonight. 

Verhaeghe finished the regular season top 10 in the NHL for goals with 42 while Barkov had another PPG season. 

The Panthers captain went the entire game without a shot on goal and frankly wasn’t very noticeable tonight besides his 52% success rate in the face off circle. 

The rest of the line wasn’t much better. Anthony Duclair had the most “quality” looks out of the trio, but he still wasn’t able to threaten Ullmark. 

Florida needed offense badly in this game and they didn’t get any help from their number one line. 

Florida’s first round power play drought continues 

The Panthers did not score a single goal in last year’s first round series against Washington – yet they were still able to get out of that series in six games. The Cats only scored one goal on 31 power play chances in last season’s playoffs. 

Tonight the Panthers once again struck out on their mad-advantage, going 0/2. The Bruins were able to lock the Cats up on their second PP attempt, not giving them a moment to set up. 

It was pretty much the same story when Florida pulled the goalie for an extra attacker with about 3 minutes left in the game. 

Linus Ullmark shut the door

Boston’s starting goalie should be the favorite to win the Vezina, he was that good in the regular season. 

Tonight it was no different. 

Florida didn’t get “goalied” tonight, as the Bruins played a fairly complete team game. However, Ullmark still had to face 32 shots from a Panthers team who was firing pucks from pretty much everywhere in the o-zone. 

Ullmark made the saves he needed tonight and he got the goal support from his team, which was enough for Boston to take an early series lead