BOSTON — The Bruins were looking to close out their first-round series in Game 5 against the Panthers on Wednesday night, but Florida had a different idea, defeating Boston in overtime to extend their playoff lives.
The back-and-forth battle saw Florida take the lead on three different occasions before Matthew Tkachuk sealed the victory for the Panthers in the extra frame.
“The most important thing is that you learn as you go. This would be the fifth game I liked our first period,” Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said postgame via Bruins-provided transcript. “I did not like the penalty call at all, but that changed everything. Home crowd — lots of energy, and they came at us pretty good. They’re a good team, and they have that power, that ability to do that.”
Maurice, who doesn’t like to talk about officiating, alluded to the Panthers not getting the benefit of the calls in the game.
“We’ve been so close to elimination from January on, that we’re pretty good at taking a few punches if we have to, like Sam Bennett did at the end of the third period,” Maurice said. “Didn’t get off the mat. I liked our overtime, I liked the way we approached it. So, we learn from it. We just continue to try to stay out of the penalty box and then get off the map.”
Maurice also said the save Sergei Bobrovsky made on Brad Marchand in the final seconds of regulation was of cosmic proportions.
“I’m trying to feel it for you and then attach words to it, and I can’t,” Maurice said. “I knew it wasn’t going in. And you can’t know it’s not going in, so I’m full of (expletive) when I just said that to you. But I don’t feel that we’ve had a whole lot of advantage in this series. That’s a nice way of saying I disagree with a number of the calls. I just felt we’d stored up enough karma that the puck didn’t go in.”
Regardless of whether or not the Panthers’ bench boss agrees with the officiating, he didn’t sugarcoat his team being outplayed for parts of the game and his goaltender made 44 saves on 47 shots by the Bruins.
“They had possession from the power play goal on. They were very dominant this game. They had lots of chances; they had lots of zone time; they had lots of action. Sergei was fantastic,” Maurice said. “We invented new ways to give up chances and shots at the end of the game. The trend is, you probably can’t give up fifty shots a night. You got to win a series. This isn’t a full series anymore.”
The series shifts to Sunrise, Fla. on Friday night for a pivotal Game 6. Puck drop from FLA Live Arena is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET. You can watch the game, along with an hour of pregame coverage, on NESN.
