It was pretty telling when Marco Sturm recently spoke of his hockey team’s tendency to play up, or down, to their competition as a very real trait for this season’s edition of the Black and Gold.
Sturm was speaking about the Bruins rising to the occasion against a host of quality, playoff-level teams in a tough schedule ahead of the postseason, but the danger of taking lesser teams for granted remains a part of this B’s team identity as well.
It certainly held true in some big games with playoff implications against the Wild, the Blue Jackets and the Red Wings recently, but it’s also led to a couple of embarrassing blemish-type losses to Toronto and Florida teams just playing out the string this month. The latest letdown “effort” was Thursday night’s 2-1 loss to an injury-ravaged Panthers team at Amerant Bank Arena where essentially the B’s didn’t start putting in a winning level of effort and urgency until the third period.
At that point, Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky put it in lockdown mode with 15 saves over the final 20 minutes while protecting a one-goal lead and preventing the Bruins from salvaging a point in a game where they coasted for the opening 40 minutes.
“We didn’t respect our opponent,” lamented Marco Sturm to NESN’s Andy Brickley after the game was over. “That’s the bottom line. We saw a lot of guys out [with injuries], and we didn’t respect the [reigning] Stanley Cup champions. That was it…that was the game.
“We just didn’t do our job, so shame on us today. They played the hard way, and we just weren’t willing to do it. We were stubborn between the blue lines, where we didn’t try to put it in [deep], and we played on the outside. Everything that we did was pretty much for nothing. We just weren’t willing to go with the hard area. A lot of guys didn’t play to their potential today, unfortunately.”
Marco Sturm after tonight's loss to the Panthers
— NESN (@NESN) April 3, 2026
"We saw a lot of guys out, and we didn't respect the [reigning] Stanley Cup champions." 😳 pic.twitter.com/xKOuaN0T47
Two players that didn’t really need to hang their heads afterward were Jeremy Swayman, who kept the Bruins in the game with save after save against Grade-A chances for the Panthers in the second period (12 saves for Swayman in the second period and a 22-save effort overall) as Florida looked to open up some breathing room on their narrow lead, and Fraser Minten as the only goal scorer for the Black and Gold while tallying one at the end of the first period.
“There was a little more desperation [in the third period],” said Minten. “This was kind of a sleepy one from us. We just have to kind of find a way to ramp up for the whole game [like the team did in the third period].”
Aside from that, it was too little, too late as a scuffling Morgan Geekie had a handful of scoring chances that he couldn’t cash in on the third period during Boston’s 15-shot barrage. Geekie now has zero goals in his last 15 games, dating back to the beginning of March, and has shown a streak propensity this season that has him in a major cold stretch at the most important time of year.
Sturm was trying to spark anything by reuniting David Pastrnak with Geekie and Elias Lindholm toward the end of the game, and it did result in elevated scoring chances for all three forwards. But in the end, it resulted in just one five-on-five goal scored in a disengaged game where there weren’t a lot of penalties, special teams play, or much urgency with the Bruins looking at an over 95 percent chance of securing a playoff spot in the season’s final weeks.
“I’m just trying to score…just trying to beat him,” said a visibly frustrated Geekie after it was all over in a game where he had a massive 10 shot attempts and a handful of quality scoring chances. “It feels like tonight you let everybody down. You had your opportunities and it’s just tough. It’s been a tough stretch and it’s one of those things where you just try to man up and gut through it.
“It does help when are winning games, but tonight it stings a little more. It felt like we weren’t sustaining anything and tried to get something going. We had opportunities later in the game, but you’ve just got to capitalize on a few of them.”
Certainly, the B’s penchant for playing down to opponents is a concern on some level, but they