Donnelly: Overtime gaffe aside, the Bruins only have themselves to blame after dropping Game 5

Linus Ullmark probably didn't think he had the game on his stick behind the net. 

But it quickly became apparent after a miscommunication with Matt Grzelcyk when Ullmark sent a backhand right to Carter Verhaeghe in the left corner, who had Matthew Tkachuk wide-open, streaking down the slot from the bench. 

The ornery winger swiftly collected the skittering puck before pulling it to his backhand and depositing it into the yawning cage to send the series back to Florida for Game 6. 

It was a microcosm for another night filled with unforced errors by the Bruins. 

"I tried to send it out into the corner a little bit by passing," Ullmark said. "[Verhaeghe] makes a good play in catching it, and the rest is history."

It was an uncharacteristically forgettable performance from the Vezina Trophy frontrunner, who had a minus-1.85 goals-saved above expected on the night, giving up two medium-danger goals as well. He seemed to be caught in between with his glove hand on Sam Bennett's second-period goal.

"There's gonna be adversity in a series," Ullmark said. "It's always hard to close it out. The team's gonna play for their lives and their season. So, you've got to be better for the next one and start on time. That's including me. I'm guilty of that as well, but you know what? It's a new day tomorrow. ... We're gonna go back, have a good night's sleep, wake up, see the sunshine again, travel to Florida and go back at it."

That the puck was back behind Ullmark's net in the first place was due to another miscue by Boston at the other end. With sustained attacking zone pressure, Brad Marchand sent the puck back to the point where Pavel Zacha, unable to make a play on it, had just come off the bench as the puck slid right on past and into Boston's zone. 

"I thought we had real good O-zone pressure, and we tried to move the puck up to the [point] but we had made a change. So, the puck went all the way down. We just had a miss-handle on our goalie-defenseman communication there on the puck," Jim Montgomery said. "It ended up getting jacked into our net."

Even with the overall domination of possession and shot-generating for most of the second and third periods, Game 5 ended as another dud on home ice for the Bruins, who committed 17 turnovers as a team. Even in the uglier Game 2 loss, Boston had 15. 

"Well, in Boston there have been [lulls in concentration]. That's for sure," Montgomery said. "For whatever reason, we didn't start on time. They were the better team in the first period. ... We tend to make big mistakes right now. I don't know why the last two games at home, we don't manage our ice or manage the puck. It's one of the two."

Patrice Bergeron said, "I think it’s a game of inches at times and obviously you’d like to take care of pucks a little better in our zone. You don’t want to give them freebies if you will. I think that’s who we are — our structure has always been something that gives us success. I think learning from that, when we’re able to move north, south and straight lines, we’re able to get the puck on and generate a little more. That being said, they're a good team and they came in and did what they had to do. We have to go out there and do the same thing.”

The B's notched the first two shots on goal within 2:10 of play. After as the Bruins passed up looks on a netminder they got through five times on Sunday, the Panthers landed the next eight, including Anthony Duclair's tally to open the scoring, which came off a costly Tyler Bertuzzi turnover to perfectly set up Verhaeghe in front. Boston went 9:13 between shots.

The Bruins fought back from the initial deficit before coming back from two more holes to force overtime. To their credit, they combined to outshoot the Panthers, 34-14, in the second and third periods during all situations. Attempts were 70-26 for Boston in that span, scoring chances were 44-15 and high-danger looks were 14-2. Yet, here they are preparing to travel back to Sunrise, Fla.

Shots, attempts, scoring chances and high-danger chances were even across the board for Boston and Florida in the overtime, but it was turnovers leading to chances in the middle of the ice rearing their head at the worst times once again. All four of Florida's goals were either right in the slot or between the dots, at the very least.

"When you're chasing the game like we did all night: 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 2-2, 3-2, 3-3 and then obviously, you can't chase the game anymore, you expend a lot of energy," Montgomery said. "I thought that after the energy we spent in the second and third trying to tie the game up, I didn't think we were as sharp in the overtime."

During the third-period surge, Bergeron tied it on the power play before Florida got a power play goal of their own. Boston's up-and-down man advantage had a gift-wrapped opportunity to bury the Panthers after the Cats took a too-many-men minor with 3:35 remaining in regulation. Even with two power-play goals for the game, those two minutes underscored a night of frustration for the man-up unit. 

The B's have four power-play goals in three games at TD Garden in the series and four at 5-on-5. On the road, they have seven tallies at 5-on-5 and two on the advantage.

"I thought our power play could have sealed the game there on that last power play," Montgomery said. "I don't even know if we got a look on it, to be honest. ... We've got to get more 5-on-5 scoring at home. We got a lot in Florida, but we didn't get enough in the three games at home so far."

Boston trotted out a quartet of forward line combinations vastly different from what found success in the regular season and early in the playoffs. As the Bruins slumped early – Zacha, Taylor Hall and Jake DeBrusk were out-attempted 7-1, out-chanced 4-1 and outshot 3-0 in just 3:34 of 5-on-5 time together, as an example – Montgomery quickly readjusted. 

“Well, I don’t know if changing the lines had anything to do with what we just — I don’t know why we didn’t have energy in the first period, but we just didn’t," he said. "We didn’t get to our game, but changing the lines, I changed the lines halfway through the first and then I changed the lines to start the second, and I just thought Charlie Coyle, [Garnet] Hathaway and Hall just did a really good job getting everyone going north and playing Bruins hockey.”  

Even with the struggles in the last two home games, the Bruins have success in Florida going for them in this series. Brad Marchand knows Boston must do a better job of reciprocating the Panthers' intensity.

"It would’ve been nice to finish it here," Marchand said. "But we’re back at it on Friday, and we definitely need to understand the desperation they’re playing with, and we saw that from the drop of the puck tonight. We need to bring that same kind of desperation and be level with what they brought from the start of the game. If we do that, we’ll be good.”