The Bruins, as Charlie McAvoy put it Monday night, threw the first punch in their Stanley Cup playoffs first-round series against the Florida Panthers.
Despite playing without captain Patrice Bergeron, the Bruins were able to shake off some nerves and fight back a feisty Panthers team to hold on for a 3-1 win in the series opener.
It certainly didn’t have the beauty or dominance of the Bruins’ previous 65 wins this season. But come springtime, all that matters is getting the W.
Here are six takeaways from Game 1:
It wasn’t perfect — far from it
The Bruins should win this series, but the Panthers — who were one of two teams to beat the Bruins twice in the regular season — present some challenges. It’s even more difficult when you’re without your captain, who also happens to be one of the best two-way players on the planet.
The Panthers spent good chunks of the game hemming in the Bruins in the Boston end, especially in the second period when Florida dictated the pace. Florida produced 12 five-on-five scoring chances after a first period in which it had a game-high seven high-danger chances. Luckily for the Bruins, Linus Ullmark was up to the task, allowing Boston to break through and play in front.
“I think that we didn’t handle that push great, but our goaltender did,” head coach Jim Montgomery said.
Just about all of the advanced numbers point to the Panthers being the better team in Game 1. But the Bruins found a way to get it done, which is all that really matters right now. It does need to get better, though.
Ullmark shines, especially when needed most
To the Ullmark point, he was simply sensational despite questions about whether he’d even be able to play. Montgomery was noncommittal in the morning about his goaltending plans, but the likely Vezina Trophy winner was there to lead the team onto the ice for warmups.
If there were questions about his playoff pedigree — Ullmark lost both starts with an unsightly .860 save percentage in two playoff starts last season — he started to answer them Monday night. His best sequence of the night might have come in the first period, just five minutes into the game when he stopped a Josh Mahura slap shot from the point and then stoned Colin White’s rebound attempt on the doorstep.
If Ullmark plays like this all spring, the Bruins will be just fine, especially if they get the other stuff ironed out in front of him.
Don’s dealings pay off
Don Sweeney and the Bruins front office get a lot of credit for how they’ve built a championship core, and that’s certainly the biggest reason this team competes on a yearly basis. The encouraging thing about this team, though, is the depth and complementary pieces. That’s what separates good roster building from elite roster building. For one game, at least, Sweeney’s work on the margins stood out in a massive way.
In no specific order, these players — who weren’t on the Bruins’ roster a year ago — all contributed in a major way Monday night.
Tyler Bertuzzi: He was arguably the Bruins’ best skater and was all over the ice. He chipped in on the score sheet with a pair of assists and played the agitator role as well as anyone could.
Dmitry Orlov: Another trade deadline pickup, Orlov was stout in his own end and was more than willing to jump into the play on the offensive end with a team-high five shots on goal.
Pavel Zacha: With Bergeron down, Zacha stepped right in and helped keep Boston’s top line rolling. He won 10 of his 19 faceoffs and assisted on the Bruins’ third goal.
Montgomery sings a different tune
All season long, the Bruins head coach preached the importance of sticking to the process. It is a very big part of his coaching philosophy and has been for a while. So it was certainly interesting to see him stray from that ideology a bit in his postgame news conference.
“I mean, results matter more than the process right now,” Montgomery said. “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.”
Jake DeBrusk said something similar in a walk-off interview with NESN’s Andrew Raycroft, too.
The Bruins will certainly address the issues Tuesday with the hopes of improving in Game 2. Surely, that will rely on getting back to the process. But the Game 1 showing paired with Montgomery’s messaging tweak reinforces the fact that it doesn’t really matter how you do it or how it looks this time of year — all that matters is winning.
Doing work in the dirty area
Speaking of Montgomery speaking, he said this about the Bruins after the team put the finishing touches on its deadline dealings by acquiring Bertuzzi from Detroit: “We have a lot of guys that are really hard to play against, which makes it — we’re going to be a tough out in the playoffs because we’ve got players who go to the areas where you score goals in playoff time.”
Bertuzzi certainly came through on that, albeit in a power-play role, on the Bruins’ first goal when he won a puck in front of the net before a gorgeous no-look pass to David Pastrnak.
Montgomery seemed even more prophetic, however, when DeBrusk jammed home the final goal of the night amid a sea of humans in front of Alex Lyon’s cage.
Unheralded returns
Derek Forbort made his return to the Bruins lineup, taking Matt Grzelcyk’s spot while playing his first game since March 16. If Forbort stands out, it’s usually for the wrong reasons; such is life as a stay-at-home, defensive-minded defenseman. But he certainly did his job in Game 1. Forbort logged 17:27 of ice time, but he was especially effective on the penalty kill with 2:22 of that ice time coming on the PK. Montgomery clearly trusts him, too. Forbort was on the ice for the final 76 seconds of the game, helping to protect the lead against the extra Panthers skater.
Props, as well, to Tomas Nosek, who returned after missing the final game of the season. He, too, helped out with 2:22 of shorthanded time, helping to keep a potent Panthers power play off the board. The PK contributions of both were especially important without Bergeron in the lineup. In that same vein, Nosek was great in the faceoff dot, winning 10 of 14 draws.
