Donnelly: Bruins left with more questions than answers after troubling Game 6 loss

What's happening to the Boston Bruins? 

The league's deepest, most dominant team has unraveled in Games 5 and 6 against the Florida Panthers, who forced a decisive Game 7 set for Sunday at TD Garden. The historic regular season is quickly in danger of becoming a punchline, going the way of the 2019 Tampa Bay Lightning or the 1996 Detroit Red Wings. 

Boston had played its best hockey to this point in the series at FLA Live Arena, but the bad habits that nagged them on home ice managed to hop the flight to the Sunshine State and plague the Bruins once more. 

There were questionable lineup decisions again. The call to insert Connor Clifton over Matt Grzelcyk was puzzling, at best, even before the drop of the puck, considering how poorly lineup changes had gone for the B's earlier in the season. It's not often that something has so quickly backfired for the Bruins, but before the first period was over, it became a lamentable decision on the part of Jim Montgomery.

Clifton was one-half of a disastrous pair with Derek Forbort as the Panthers tore apart their inefficiencies with the puck and in transition. No. 75 took a senseless charging penalty on Zac Dalpe (remember him for later) in the first, taking the wind out of Boston's sails after Tyler Bertuzzi had tied the game. Not long after exiting the box, Clifton saw ghosts in the neutral zone, zipping a stretch pass to nobody before Florida broke in for a 2-on-1, which Matthew Tkachuk capitalized on for his first goal of the game. 

In the third, Clifton chased behind the net before an uncovered Dalpe in the slot one-timed a feed through Linus Ullmark. Minutes later with Boston under severe duress in its own end, Clifton's bank pass to Nick Foligno didn't connect, allowing the Panthers to maintain pressure as Eetu Luostarinen had all day to shoot coming across the high slot for the eventual game-winner.

The Cats severely outplayed Boston with the Forbort-Clifton pairing on the ice at 5-on-5, outshooting the B's, 21-11, out-attempting them, 42-21 and out-chancing them, 21-14 (8-4 high-danger). Each was on for three goals-against, serving as a microcosm for the breakdown in the defensive zone.

"I think we're going to be consistent. We're going to analyze everybody that played," Montgomery told reporters postgame, saying the Bruins failed to win races to their net and not protecting the slot.

The official stats only accredited the Bruins with six giveaways, 11 less than Game 5 and nine fewer than Game 2. Nevertheless, the unforced errors were just as costly. Although not a turnover, among the self-inflicted wounds was a shank by Hampus Lindholm on a clearing attempt in the third period, sending the puck over the glass for a delay of game penalty on a clearing attempt. It wasn't even close.

The B's appeared to be out of the woods after Jake DeBrusk's shorthanded goal restored the Bruins' lead, but 27 seconds later, the puck was back in the net behind Ullmark as Tkachuk's second of the game forced Lindholm to make the skate of shame. 

"Every mistake, you had to pay for on both sides today," David Pastrnak said. "We have to make sure we limit the mistakes and prep for Game 7."

There was the decision between Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman in net. Boston went with its rock, Ullmark to start, likely as expected, but the netminder struggled. A discombobulated and anemic defensive structure in front of him certainly didn't help things, but as the Bruins waited for No. 35 to bail them out like he had at times during the season, it never came. Even if Florida hung four high-danger goals on Ullmark, according to Natural Stat Trick, there were saves that needed to be made, whether it was the Luostarinen game-winner or the Brandon Montour opening goal. The minus-2.59 goals-saved above expected is subpar, no matter which way you look at it. 

"Unfortunately, I couldn't make that extra save today," Ullmark said. "You just make one more save, that's it. Sometimes, that's the part of the game that unfortunately doesn't really happen sometimes. Today was one of those days." 

It's the most starts in a row that Ullmark has made in the entire season and the most taxing workload he has dealt with. He appeared to grow sluggish as the game went on, although he said he feels good.

"I think Linus is fine," Montgomery said. "I looked at him in the eyes when he came back to the bench, and I liked the way his eyes were looking. He looked intense and he looked keen."

Both Ullmark and Sergei Bobrovsky were left in to take the offensive onslaughts by both teams, and Montgomery said he contemplated a change in goal. There's always the chance of it backfiring, but a switch-up could have helped snap the Bruins out of their defensive daze.

"We communicate with everybody involved, and we just felt like it was that kind of game that we were going to pull out," Montgomery said of the contemplation to make a switch between the pipes. "It was a kind of game that happened a lot during the year, and we just happened to find a way to win it. But we're learning here in the playoffs. It's a different animal. It just is."

He later added, "If we think there needs to be a change [for Game 7], we're going to make a change. ... I've got to review it. When goals happen, as a coach, I don't look at the goalie. If he gets beat clean, then I notice things, and if he's not tracking pucks. I always look at the team, and what the team's doing in front of him. That wasn't good enough."

The decision is now tougher than it was going into Games 3, 4 and 6. When 6:30 p.m. Sunday rolls around, Swayman's only action in 16 days will have been 3:10 of play at the end of Game 4 in which he faced only one shot. 

There's the third period, which had been Boston's best period for the entire season with a plus-54 goal differential in 82 games. In the series, the margin is even. For a team that closes out games as well as anyone, the Bruins couldn't withstand the final 20 minutes once again in this series.

After rallying from its third deficit with Bertuzzi's equalizer early in the period, the Bruins appeared in control after Pastrnak's go-ahead goal on the power play. The lead lasted for less than five minutes.

DeBrusk's shorthanded goal felt like a dagger. Surely, Boston would stop playing with its food, but then there was the Lindholm botch. The lead didn't make it even 30 seconds. 

Just over four minutes later, Luostarinen delivered what would be the actual dagger.

"The interesting thing is we were behind, and we did find a way to get the lead twice," Montgomery said. "That's the disappointing part because we know how to close out games. A lot of it, you've got to give credit to Florida. They beat us to our net and they hemmed us in. We didn't protect our net-front like we usually do."

The lamentable Brandon Carlo no-goal – a result of a frame-by-frame zoom-in on DeBrusk's finger-tip, thanks to the Pandora's Box of video replay –  only added to the cacophony of mishaps for Boston, who couldn't weather the expected push from the Panthers, failing to create its own luck when even the bounces weren't on its side. 

"It is what it is. They obviously looked at it, and called it what it was," DeBrusk said. "To have that go against us, and then they score you know, not even a minute or something later, it's a tough two-goal swing there."

Montgomery said, "I've just got to think that it touched his glove. I don't think there was any attempt to hand-pass the puck, but if it touches your glove, then it's a hand-pass."

Now heading into a do-or-die Game 7 with much more than a season on the line, the same questions continue to loom over the mighty Bruins, whether it be in net, the lineup, or simply, how this could happen.