Bruins ‘Know What’s Ahead’ Following Uncharacteristic Game 2 Loss

BOSTON — The Bruins have every right to be rattled following their Game 2 loss to the Florida Panthers on Wednesday night.

In fact, Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery admitted he thought his team felt that way during its uncharacteristically sloppy loss at TD garden. The performance was bad enough for Boston’s bench boss to even forecast some potential lineup changes as the series shifts down to Sunrise, Fla. for Game 3.

So, how do the players feel? Well, they’re taking things in stride and looking to immediately turn the page.

“I see things at 1-1 right now and we’re going down there,” Charlie McAvoy said postgame, per team-provided transcript. “We know what’s ahead of us and we just have to play the right way. … Man, there’s ups and downs in every series and it’s just playoff hockey so, take it for what it is and turn the page, that’s it. Know that we have to be better moving forward.”

Though Boston hasn’t quite been in this spot before, having rattled off the most dominant regular season in the history of the NHL, there’s little doubt that it has the guns to do so. At this stage of the game, however, the past doesn’t matter. The Bruins believe it’s all about what comes next.

“We knew it was going to be a hard series. Definitely not one we expected to walk through,” Brad Marchand said postgame, per team-provided transcript. “They play well at home, so we have our work cut out for us. We have to make sure that we bring our best next game. It’s one day at a time in playoffs. You can’t look at tonight — it doesn’t matter if we lost 10-0 or we lost in overtime. A loss is a loss, a win is a win. We move on. We’ll forget about this one now and start regrouping and see where we can improve. But if we don’t bring our best game, it’s going to be a tough trip, so we’ve got to make sure we’re ready for the next one.”

The Bruins and Panthers will head down south for Game 3 on Friday, tied at one game apiece. Puck drop from FLA Live Arena is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET. You can watch the game, plus an hour of pregame coverage, on NESN.