There’s something in the water in South Florida, top-seed teams are still collapsing against them.
First it was the Miami Hurricanes women’s and men’s basketball teams in March, then it was the Miami Heat just five days ago, and now it’s the Florida Panthers taking down the NHL’s greatest regular season team of all time in the Boston Bruins.
The Boston Bruins are done, the Florida Panthers are moving on, and the Panthers will be right back in action on Tuesday as they start their second-round series with the Toronto Maple Leafs, which finished off the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday in six games.
The Panthers are advancing in the postseason for just the second time since reaching the Stanley Cup Final in 1996.
“Game seven. Overtime win. Against pretty much the best team in regular-season history. It’s unreal. For sure it’s up there, and it’s hard to understand right now. I don’t think we need to understand right now. We’ll understand later,” Panthers center Aleksander Barkov said after Florida defeated Boston 4-3 in a nail-biting overtime to eliminate the record-setting Bruins from the NHL Playoffs.
Sergei Bobrovsky recorded 33 saves for Florida, Brandon Montour scored Florida’s first goal, and Sam Reinhart pushed the lead to 2-0 early in the second period. David Krejci and Tyler Bertuzzi scored to tie it, and David Pastrnak gave the Bruins their only lead of the game on a power-play goal only 55 seconds into the third period.
Brandon Montour tied it at three apiece with one minute left in the third period, and Carter Verhaeghe scored the game-winner at 8:35 of overtime, subsequently sending the Panthers to the second round and stunning the Bruins in the process. The Panthers won three straight games after trailing 3-1 in the best-of-seven series.
“The fact that we were able to do what we did after what they did all year … they’re an unreal team and the best I’ve played in my NHL career. The fact that we were able to beat them was crazy. Let’s be honest, nobody in the whole world thought we were going to win that series except for the guys in that room,” Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk said.
The Boston Bruins were the recipients of the Presidents’ Trophy, they recorded an NHL record 65 wins during the regular season and 135 points, they also did not lose three consecutive games throughout their 2022-2023 campaign until they went head-to-head with the Panthers in round one.
“I don’t think you can find a harder team to play against than the Boston Bruins. They will test you; the players here now have a shared experience of what hard is. It will make us better for five years. That’s how hard it was,” said Florida coach Paul Maurice.
Boston rallied from a two-score deficit to take a 3-2 lead, but Maurice would pull Bobrovsky in the final minutes and called a timeout with 88 seconds left. Not too long after the break, Brandon Montour would save the day by scoring his second goal of the game and tying the score at 3, which ultimately lead to a sudden death overtime.
“We’re down a goal with under two minutes to go against Boston. I wouldn’t bet everything, because the match doesn’t add up, but when that goal goes in you go, ‘Ohhh, we’re going to win this game.’” – Florida coach Paul Maurice said
Carter Verhaeghe won it on a wrist shot from the right faceoff circle that barely made it under the crossbar. That shot would eliminate the Bruins, who became the second Presidents’ Trophy recipient in five years to lose in the first round.
Not a single team that has recorded the best regular-season record has won the Stanley Cup since 2013, the last team to do so was the Chicago Blackhawks, who ironically defeated the Boston Bruins in the championship that year.
“It was an honor to coach that group, I know we didn’t get to where we wanted. I get that. But their professionalism, their work ethic, their commitment to being pros. It was a joy to be around,” said Bruins coach Jim Montgomery.
