Bruins shrink against no-name Panthers: 'Didn't respect our opponent'

AtlanticBruinsCanadiensLightningMaple LeafsPanthersRed WingsSabresSenatorsMetropolitanBlue JacketsCapitalsDevilsFlyersHurricanesIslandersPenguinsRangersCentralAvalancheBlackhawksBluesJetsMammothPredatorsStarsWildPacificCanucksDucksFlamesGolden KnightsKingsKrakenOilersSharksScores & ScheduleStandingsPodcastsFantasyNHL OddsNHL PicksPlayoff projectionsNHL Draft rankingRed Light NewsletterBruins shrink against no-name Panthers: ‘Didn’t respect our opponent’Nolan Foote's seventh NHL game of the season saw him help fend off the Bruins. Megan Briggs / Getty Images Share full articleSUNRISE, Fla. — Nobody is crying for the Florida Panthers. They have two Stanley Cups. But the rotten luck the two-time champions have had with health has even Paul Maurice shaking his head. “I would caution anyone on assessing any individuals in the context of our year,” the Florida Panthers coach said Thursday morning. “We’re at 450 tonight in man-games. We’re going to crack 525. The only other team I remember doing that was the Vegas Golden Knights, and they won the Cup the next year. We survived five, six guys out of our lineup the first half of the season, and we were a point out. But we’ve been running seven, eight. It’ll be 11 tonight.” You would have thought the Boston Bruins would have had their way against a battered team missing, among others, Aleksander Barkov, Aaron Ekblad, Dmitry Kulikov, Anton Lundell, Brad Marchand and Evan Rodrigues. “We didn’t respect our opponent tonight,” coach Marco Sturm said after the Bruins’ 2-1 loss. “They had a lot of guys out. We just didn’t do our job. So shame on us today. Yeah, it was a big push in the third. It was a little bit too late. I don’t care who’s in or who’s out. They’re a well-structured team. They played the hard way. We just didn’t. We were not willing to do it.” For the Panthers, it has gotten to the point ex-Bruin A.J. Greer, a career fourth-liner, is on the second line. Nolan Foote, Mike Benning and Mikulas Hovorka, who have spent most of the year in the AHL, are now go-to players for Maurice. Yet the Panthers’ winning culture and ferociousness on the forecheck have not left the lineup. In the first two periods, the Bruins were victims to Panthers hockey: pucks in deep, players bombing in from all sides, nowhere to hide in the defensive zone. The first goal was textbook Florida. Greer, on the forecheck, got in a good lick on Henri Jokiharju. It forced the defenseman to hurry his exit. Jokiharju tried to bump the puck to Pavel Zacha, the low center, but Mackie Samoskevich picked off Jokiharju’s pass. As Samoskevich curled up to the left faceoff dot, Greer went to the front of the net, taking Jokiharju with him. When Samoskevich snapped the puck on goal, Jeremy Swayman had to fight through Jokiharju’s screen. He could not pick up the puck. “They’re as honest of a team as there is out there the way they play,” said Fraser Minten, who scored the Bruins’ lone goal with 26.7 seconds left in the first period. “They just put it behind you and make you go get it. Just got to be a little bit cleaner on those exits.” Swayman didn’t have a chance on Florida’s second goal, either. The Panthers worked the Bruins over on the walls and executed their low-to-high game. Minten stepped in front of Greer’s point shot. But Sam Bennett found the rebound and beat Swayman before the goalie could recover from the bounce. “We were stubborn between the blue lines in the neutral zone,” Sturm said. “We didn’t try to put it in. We played on the outside. Everything we’d done was pretty much for nothing. They defend well. That’s a good team, even with some guys out. We weren’t willing to go to hard areas.” The Bruins woke up in the third period. They poured 15 pucks on net. Sergei Bobrovsky turned them all aside. There was no miracle comeback like there was against the Columbus Blue Jackets two games earlier. But the Bruins saw some third-period offensive traction from Morgan Geekie. He had eight shot attempts in the final 20 minutes. Three of them got on net. His best opportunity, a point-blank wrister after a Florida turnover, went wide. Geekie, the Bruins’ leading goal scorer with 34, has not found the back of the net since March 5. Even so, the Bruins have accumulated 21 of 30 possible points within this 15-game segment. They are getting by without Geekie doing his thing. It will be hard to duplicate in the playoffs. “We need him in big moments, and he had some chances,” Sturm said. “We need more from him, too. We all want him to score, too. I know he cares. But those are the moments right now, he has to put that aside. He has to go game by game and stick with it.” Sturm gave Geekie more work, reuniting him with Elias Lindholm and David Pastrnak on the top line. He also put Geekie back on the No. 1 power-play unit. If Geekie generates chances like he did in the third period, his goal-scoring slump will end. He wishes it happens soon. “It just feels like tonight, you let everybody down,” Geekie said. “You have your opportunities. It’s just tough. It’s been a tough stretch. Just try to man up and gut through it. It does help (if) you win. But obviously tonight it stings a little more.” Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Fluto Shinzawa is a senior writer for The Athletic covering the Boston Bruins. He has covered the team since 2006, formerly as a staff writer for The Boston Globe. Follow Fluto on Twitter @flutoshinzawa