The Florida Panthers earned a heck of a victory on Monday afternoon.
Playing against the Boston Bruins, perhaps Florida’s biggest current rivals (at least in terms of pure hatred), the shorthanded Panthers continued their recent run of success against the B’s and skated to a 4-3 victory at TD Garden.
It’s Florida’s fourth consecutive win over the Bruins in their building, as the Cats took all three games in Boston during last year’s second-round playoff series.
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Now we’ll have to wait until January for the next installment in this extremely heated rivalry.
Florida fell behind early on Monday when their makeshift fourth line – which featured Jonah Gadjovich, Patrick Giles and Uvis Balinskis – was caught deep in their own end. A long shot hit John Beecher in the knee and trickled through Sergei Bobrovsky to give Boston a 1-0 lead at the 4:53 mark.
The Panthers tied things up soon after when Anton Lundell got ahold of a loose puck behind the Bruins net.
After giving it a couple of whacks along the post, the puck bounced off Jeremy Swayman and then off defenseman Hampus Lindholm before squeaking into the net off Swayman’s skate.
Being that this was a Panthers-Bruins game, there was a good amount of extracurricular activities between the hated rivals.
There were 26 penalty minutes handed out during the first period, with Boston’s Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak in the middle of much of it.
A hit by A.J. Greer on Pastrnak led to a fight between Jonah Gadjovich and Pavel Zacha, and not long after Pastrnak was called for a penalty when he gave Sam Reinhart a late shot just inside Florida’s blue line.
The special teams play was all good for Reinhart, who scored a power play goal during the first period before adding a shorthanded goal in the second.
Not to be outdone, Lundell added a second goal for himself, flying down the right side of the ice and beating Swayman under the blocker to give Florida a 4-2 lead with 7:01 left in the middle frame.
Just 68 seconds later, Mason Lohrei found himself with tons of room in the left faceoff circle, walked down to the faceoff dot and wired a wrister past Bobrovsky on the short side.
Bobrovsky came up big for Florida time and time again during the third period, holding the Bruins off the scoreboard and helping the Panthers to a solid victory in Boston.
The physicality picked up again during the final minutes with the Bruins pushing for a game-tying goal, when Pastrnak was called for slashing Carter Verhaeghe and then Marchand went after Gus Forsling.
Next up, what should be an emotional night in Columbus on Tuesday for the Blue Jackets’ home opener.
QUICK THOUGHTS
All three of Reinhart’s goals this season have come against Boston, one on the power play and two shorthanded.
It’s the second time in his career Reinhart has scored a shorthanded goal and power play goal in the same game.
Florida’s penalty kill went a perfect 3-for-3 and is now up to 11-for-13 on the season.
Reinhart’s PPG was the second of the season for the Panthers, who are now 2-for-14 while on the man advantage this season.
The only two assists for Florida on their four goals came off the sticks of a pair of defensemen, Aaron Ekbald and Adam Boqvist.
Bobrovsky finished with 25 saves, including stops on five of Boston’s six high danger shots.
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