In just about every Stanley Cup playoff series, there’s an iconic moment that becomes hockey lore of what that particular best-of-seven showdown will be remembered for when it’s all said and done.
In the first round for the Bruins, it will undoubtedly be David Pastrnak scoring the overtime game-winner in Game 7 that catapulted them into the second round and gave him his first Game 7 moment.
Pastrnak gets the OT winner, good lawd pic.twitter.com/RnV2JdiqyF
— CJ Fogler account may or may not be notable (@cjzero) May 5, 2024
In the second round, unfortunately for Boston, it’s probably going to be the goalie interference non-call in Game 4 that was backed up by the NHL after it was challenged by the Black and Gold, and ultimately led to Boston’s damaging 3-2 loss to the Florida Panthers at TD Garden on Sunday night.
Sam Bennett cross check to the back of Coyle.
— Savage (@SavageSports_) May 13, 2024
Refs let the goal stand. Pathetic. pic.twitter.com/EYuaPIgvKI
The scene was set with the Bruins attempting to hang onto a one-goal lead in the third period when Anton Lundell leveled a shot at the Boston net that Jeremy Swayman made the initial save on. Sam Bennett was able to pounce on the loose puck rebound in traffic at the back post and score after crosschecking Charlie Coyle out of the way to get easy access to the puck.
It was a huge swing for both teams after the Bruins had built up a 2-0 lead through the first period before simply trying to hang on while ultimately getting outshot 41-18 by the Panthers when it was all over.
"I'm falling over all the way if I don't hit Swayman,” said Coyle. “There was no way he could get there [to play the puck]. I hit him."
Coyle crashed into Swayman as he was trying to scramble and recover, and Bennett flipped it into the open net for the game-tying power-play strike just 3:41 into the third period. The Bruins challenged that the play was goalie interference with Bennett clearly throwing Coyle into Swayman.
But the ruling of a good goal on the ice was upheld by the league much to the chagrin of pretty much everybody in the Boston Bruins organization. In the end, it feels like league and on-ice officials didn’t believe that Swayman would have been able to recover in time to stop Bennett regardless of whether Coyle landed on top of him or not.
The explanation from the NHL as to why Sam Bennett’s game-tying goal in the third period was not goalie interference 🤷♂️ pic.twitter.com/AkahxiRR90
— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) May 13, 2024
Coyle said he was actively falling down to the ice from the Bennett hit from behind when he landed on Swayman, which pretty much took the Bruins goaltender out of the play. But he also admitted that at this point nobody feels 100 percent certainty about anything whenever a goaltender interference challenge comes into play given the inconsistency feel of the verdicts over the years.
"It's a huge swing. They tie the game, and they get a power play out of [the failed challenge],” admitted Coyle. “Those are the swings of the game. We saw something different. They saw something different. I figured [it would be overturned], but you feel like you never know [with the video challenges] anymore.”
Then there was the stupefying fact that it was the series villain Bennett who scored the pivotal game-tying goal one game after knocking Bruins captain Brad Marchand out of action with a punch to the head that inexplicably went unpunished as well. It feels like something that has all the makings of a dissatisfying chapter in Boston Bruins playoff history should the Panthers get one more win to close the B’s out.
But that’s a fate the Bruins are going to fight until it’s all said and done even if it looks like bleak right now down 3-1 in the best-of-seven series.
“The reality is that we’re going to go to Florida, we’re [going to] play the same game, and we’re [going to] get it done,” said Swayman. “I have no doubt in this group, and we have a lot of confidence and a lot of motivation to bring it back to Boston because our fans deserve a lot better, and we’re excited to do that.”
The bottom line is that, breaks or no breaks, the Bruins aren’t doing enough in this series against Florida to earn postseason wins. The controversial Bennett score was just the game-tying goal, but the Bruins defense crumbled less than four minutes later for the game-winner after Aleksander Barkov walked right down the middle of Boston’s defensive zone before flipping the puck past Swayman.
Once again Charlie McAvoy was on the ice for a damaging goal against for the Boston Bruins as he’s a minus-4 in the second-round series against the Panthers.
But the bigger point to this series is that the Bruins continue to struggle simply getting shots on net. After getting 29 shots on net in their Game 1 win over a rusty Panthers group that hadn’t played in a week, the Bruins haven’t been able to even reach 20 shots on net in the past three games without any sustained offensive zone time, pressure or ultimately the shots to get past a goalie in Sergei Bobrovsky that’s been shaky at times.
To that point, the Bruins managed just two shots on net in the third period while blowing a 2-1 lead and mounting zero serious comeback in the latter moments when they couldn’t get any shots off.
“I think we had a good start,” said David Pastrnak, who kicked off the game’s scoring with a power play strike in the first period. “We got [an] early lead, we were physical, we were on the pucks. We just have to make sure we extend the lead. You can’t sit back against, especially in the playoffs, teams like them. You have to extend the lead and keep playing on your toes.”
It’s increasingly difficult to feel optimism in Boston’s second-round series against what feels like a much better Panthers team, and a series of breaks and turns in the series that have turned Florida’s way since Game 1. Bennett’s controversial Game 4 goal just added to the feeling that this series has already been decided with the low points already well-established after a much-discussed Game 4 defeat.
