Panthers end Bruins’ season with late goal and 2-1 win in Game 6

One of the biggest questions facing the Bruins going into the playoff series with the Florida Panthers was whether or not they had enough scoring to get past their new rival.

On Friday night, that question was finally and definitively answered in the negative.

In Game 6 at the Garden, the Bruins had numerous chances to extend their one-goal lead – and the series to a seventh game – but they could not do it. The Panthers tied it and then sent the B’s into the offseason when Gustav Forsling beat Jeremy Swayman with a sneaky follow-up shot that went through the legs of Parker Wotherspoon and past Swayman’s shortside.

That lifted the Panthers to a 2-1 win in Game 6 and a 4-2 series victory.

The winner was a goal that Swayman wanted back for the rebound that he gave up, but if not for Swayman the B’s most likely would not have reached the second round. It was the lack of scoring in this series that doomed the B’s.

“You can’t win every game, 2-1,” lamented coach Jim Montgomery.

After their 5-1 win in Game 1, the B’s never scored more than two goals in a game. And while the B’s have had a lack of scoring punch in this transition season, their top goal scorer did not come through for them. David Pastrnak, the hero of Game 7 over Toronto, scored just two goals in the series and, on Friday, he didn’t convert some great chances. He took 12 shots and landed five, including one on a clean breakaway. He also failed to do anything on a 2-on-1 with Brad Marchand, returning after two games off with a concussion, in the second period.

While most observers felt the better team won, Marchand still felt his time left some potential untapped.

“We obviously would have liked and expected a different result,” said the captain. “It’s hard losing in that fashion in the last minute. It just shows how much of a game of inches it is. They’re a great team. You can’t discredit them at all. We battled hard, but we still thought we had more and we expected better.”

In the third period with score tied, Charlie McAvoy took a roughing penalty on Sam Bennett with 6:04 left in regulation. As the B’s were in the process of killing it off, Evan Rodrigues tripped John Beecher with 24 seconds left on the Florida PP.

On the advantage, Sasha Barkov came up with a big block on Pastrnak and the Panthers killed it.

It felt like it might be a long night at that point. But before the game could get to OT, Forsling followed up an Anton Lundell shot and delivered the dagger, helping the Panthers advance on Garden ice for the second straight season.

“I didn’t see it,” said Swayman of the GWG. “I wish that I had put the rebound in a better spot and I didn’t see the release of the second shot. There was a hole there, obviously and it was unacceptable.”

As one might expect and as we have so often seen in pivotal playoff games, the B’s pushed hard at the outset of the game but weren’t able to crack the goalie. The fourth line earned the first power play of the game when Aaron Ekblad hooked James van Riemsdyk at 3:38.

But the power play sapped all the B’s momentum for much of the rest of the period. They didn’t get a shot on the PP and, as the Panthers’ forecheck started to work, Florida got the next nine shots on net.

The B’s, however, would strike first on an electric play in the final minute of the first, and one that surely set off Panthers’ fans.

Brandon Carlo, who was not in the play, was tangled up with Carter Verhaeghe. Just as it looked like they were separating, Verhaeghe jumped into a standing-still Carlo in an attempt to get  Wotherspoon’s breakout pass along the wall and landed flat on his back. No call.

Meanwhile, Jake DeBrusk made a brilliant backhand pass from the right wing boards from his own blue line that sprung Pavel Zacha for a breakaway at the Florida blue line. Zacha had not scored a playoff goal in the previous 24 postseason games in his career, but he calmly showed his forehand, then beat Sergei Bobrovsky on his backhand. Not a bad way to get on the board.

It was an eventful first few shifts in the second period, though no damage was done. First, Pastrnak was sent on a clean breakaway by Morgan Geekie but the B’s best goal scorer could not beat Bobrovsky through the five-hole with his backhander.

And then the B’s were called for a record-setting seventh too-many-men penalty, but they managed to kill it off.

The B’s then missed another gorgeous chance when Pastrnak fed Charlie McAvoy in front of a wide-open net but his backhander bounced just to the left of the cage.

The Grade A’s continued to mount for the B’s. Zacha stole a puck behind the Florida net from Ekblad and fed Justin Brazeau in front for an open one-timer but Bobrovsky turned it away.

All the missed opportunities finally caught up to them at 12:44. DeBrusk had fallen in the defensive slot after blocking a shot and was trying futilely to play the puck. Before Geekie could get to it, Anton Lundell pounced and snapped a wrist shot past Swayman’s glove.

It seemed as if Bobrovsky was getting in the B’s heads a bit at that point. Pastrnak had a promising chance on a quick 2-on-1 with Marchand and he elected to attempt a pass that never made it to the captain.

The Panthers started to take control of the game late in the second, in which they held a 13-7 shot advantage. It was deadlocked at 1-1 going into the third but, as they have for two series now against the B’s, the Panthers made one more play than the B’s could.