Bruins Leaders Offer Insight On Elevating Their Play Vs. Panthers

The Bruins received a blow when head coach Jim Montgomery revealed captain Brad Marchand is day-to-day with an upper-body injury he sustained in Game 3 against the Panthers.

The other team leaders will have to step up in Marchand’s absence and figure out how to elevate their play as they try and even the series in Game 4.

“We’re just looking ahead to the next game,” Charlie Coyle told reporters after the Bruins practiced at Warrior Ice Arena on Saturday. “We had a good practice today. Focus on the task at hand and getting ready, getting prepared, going over some things. We know we can play better, and we want to prove that tomorrow.”

Even being down 2-1 in the series, the Bruins haven’t lost confidence in themselves as a group and know they have to put forth a full 60-minute effort if they want to beat the Panthers.

“I have a lot of confidence and faith in this group,” Charlie McAvoy told reporters. “It’s a really close group. We all believe in here (the locker room). That doesn’t change. We’ve had pockets in Game 1 where we played great. Now, we’ve got to put it together for 60 (minutes), and we got to start building on something here. That’s what we’re looking at on Sunday, and can’t wait for the opportunity.”

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After being outscored 12-3 in the last two games, Coyle said the B’s will be ready to battle the Panthers in the best-of-seven second-round series.

“You want to keep growing it, but you want to give yourself a chance and play the right way,” Coyle said. “There’s some pretty good teams left in these playoffs at this stage of the season. It’s not easy, and you don’t want it to be easy, honestly. That’s what makes it worth it in the end. We’re looking forward to the opportunity. It’s always about that next game, that next play, that next shift.”

“There’s always gonna be ups and downs, nothing’s gonna be perfect, but we’ve got to give ourselves a good chance. Whether they come out hard, they have their push; it’s up to us to create ours. And we got to do that quicker, we gotta stay out of the box … that kind of damped our momentum that we had a few times (in Game 3). So, little things like that and we’ll create our bounces by our work ethic. We win our battles one-on-one. We give ourselves a pretty good chance to win games; we’ve seen that in these playoffs. Simplifying things usually plays into our favor the way in the way we play.”

The Bruins will look to put it all together and even the series at 2-2 in Game 4 on Sunday. Puck drop from TD Garden is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. ET and will be broadcast on TBS with NESN carrying an hour of pre- and postgame coverage.