Linus Ullmark made his third start for the Boston Bruins during Wednesday’s loss to the Florida Panthers. And while he missed out on a chance to make history with a win, head coach Bruce Cassidy didn’t seem too disappointed after the loss.
Asked how he would assess Ullmark’s performance through his first three starts with Boston, Cassidy explained the former Buffalo Sabres netminder could stand to have more urgency toward the beginning of the game, but the Bruins’ 4-1 loss wasn’t as much his fault as the score line would suggest.
“You want to see that first stop in the first period,” Cassidy said after the loss. “There’s a lot of hockey left, but that’s one that gives them a little bit of life. There can’t be one of those every game. Make the saves you’re supposed to, then when it’s crunch time, do what you have to do to win. Second period was on us as a team, not him. We gave up a breakaway on kind of a soft play on the power play … He was there for some saves for us.
“In the second period, he gave us a chance to win. At some point, when Bobrovsky’s doing what he’s doing, you’ve got to sort of match him punch for punch, and that’s where he was a little bit better.”
The Bruins were much stronger offensively than the Panthers in the first period, scoring the first goal en route to a 15-5 advantage on shots in that period. Florida, however, scored an equalizer on the fourth shot of the game.
Form there, it was an onslaught in the second period, where the Panthers had a 14-2 advantage on shots in the frame. Still, Ullmark allowed just one goal. The Panthers added two more to their tally in the final frame.
Ullmark finished the night with 23 saves against a high-flying Panthers offense. He now boasts a .920 save percentage and 2.00 goals against average through three starts.
Florida improved to 7-0 with the win.
