Bruins Notes: Panthers One Win Away From Eliminating Boston

BOSTON — The Panthers took a commanding 3-1series lead over the Bruins after Florida defeated Boston 3-2 in Game 4 on Sunday night.

The Bruins set the tone early when Charlie McAvoy laid a thunderous hit on Sam Reinhart just 14 seconds into the game.

“I’ll give great credit to Charlie McAvoy,” Brandon Carlo said after the game. “Right off the bat, getting that big hit, that got us initiated within the game.

“We talked about it beforehand, wanting to have a good start. We accomplished that today. Throughout the rest of the game, I feel like we just need to maintain our level of play throughout the full 60 minutes, and hopefully, we can end up on top.”

After the Bruins took a 2-0 lead in the first period, the Panthers stormed back with three unanswered goals to secure the win. Florida’s second goal came off the stick of Sam Bennett after he cross-checked Charlie Coyle into Jeremy Swayman.

Boston challenged the tally for goaltender interference, but the league determined that the play had no bearing on the goal’s outcome and the call stood.

Having Bennett score the goal made it tougher to swallow, given the cheap shot he took on Brad Marchand in Game 3.

“Yeah, 100%,” David Pastrnak said. “We saw it. It was clearly intentional in our look and the (camera) footage we got. These are the cards we have to deal with. We have to make sure to regroup and get ready for our next game.”

Boston held a 3-1 series advantage over Florida last season, only to be eliminated by the Panthers in Game 7. The Bruins are hoping to flip the script and win the next three games.

“We have our backs up against the wall right now,” Carlo said. “But what a great opportunity for us to kind of do to them what they did to us last year.”

Here are more notes from Sunday’s Bruins- Panthers Game 4:

— Swayman offered a very blunt assessment of the controversial goal in the second period.

“The fact is that (Charlie) Coyle was pushed into me and I couldn’t play my position,” Swayman said. “That’s that. … I just want to stick to facts. The fact is that my own player was pushed into me by theirs and I couldn’t play my position.”

— The Bruins were called for four straight infractions in the third period, six overall in the game. Boston went 5-for-6 on the penalty kill.

“To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever seen four penalties in the third period,” Pastrnak said. “That’s eight minutes, a half of a period is spent on the kill. That, I have never seen.

“I can’t even recall the penalties right now so I don’t want to get into it. I’m just saying I’ve never seen the team take four penalties, and it was in a row, so it’s tough. We have to stay out of the box and play 5-on-5.”

— Boston is 0-25 when facing a 3-1 deficit in any best-of-seven series.

— The Bruins will look to keep their season alive when they face the Panthers on Tuesday night in Sunrise, Florida. Puck drop at Amerant Bank Arena is set for 7 p.m. ET on ESPN.