Jim Montgomery Thought This ‘Surprised’ Bruins In Game 1 Win

The Bruins’ play might look a little different Wednesday night at TD Garden.

Boston obviously doesn’t need to go back to the drawing board much after kicking off its first-round Stanley Cup playoff series against the Florida Panthers with a win Monday night. But don’t be surprised if you see the Bruins play a bit looser when the Eastern Conference foes meet for Game 2. Jitters come with the territory in postseason openers, and Jim Montgomery could see them within his club to a degree in Game 1.

“I mean, results matter more than the process right now,” Montgomery told reporters, per a team-provided transcript. “Because our process, when we look at our five-on-five game, we’re not very happy with our process. So we can get better there, but the result was really good and I think the result comes from — we had some players play really well, especially our goaltender, and I think when you look at how we started the game, I really liked our first six minutes. But the intensity of playoffs, it surprised us a little bit and I think we had a little bit of nerves.”

Nerves among the Bruins weren’t very transparent, as Boston looked composed and collected for most of its 3-1 win over Florida. And that’s no small feat when an NHL club is forced to begin a playoff run without its captain.

The Bruins will try to take a 2-0 lead over the Panthers in the sides’ best-of-seven series Wednesday. NESN’s full coverage begins at 6:30 p.m. ET.