The Florida Panthers beat the Boston Bruins in what might be the craziest game in franchise history.
When I tell you that this will most likely go down as one of the craziest and best nights for the Florida Panthers, I truly mean it. This game had the largest comeback win for the Panthers in franchise history, a brief power outage, and a third period that would make any fan of hockey say, “Omg, what just happened?” The Cats beat the Boston Bruins 5-4 after overcoming a 4-0 deficit.
The first period came and went with no goals scored for either team. The second period opened up and it was all Bruins. Before the goals started happening though, TD Garden lost power for a brief amount of time. I’ve never seen anything like that happen before.
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I was watching the game live when it happened and I honestly thought it was the TV I was watching it on going dim for some strange reason, but low and behold, it was the lights at the arena that actually went out. It was actually pretty funny.
Everything came back on and that’s when the onslaught of goals occurred by Boston. The first goal, scored by David Pastrnak and assisted by Patrice Bergeron, was scored at the 11:55 mark to make it 1-0. Next, Joakim Nordstrom scored to make it 2-0.
The next goal was scored by Anders Bjork and assisted by David Krejci and Brad Marchand on the power play at the 17:16 mark to make it 3-0. To end the 2nd period, captain Zdeno Chara scored at the 19:31 mark to make it 4-0.
Now, let me give it to you straight. There was a small part of me that was freaking out and worried that the Panthers wouldn’t come back from this. I mean think about it, coming back from being down by four goals is no easy feat to accomplish. However, a larger part of me knew that this team seems to play better when they’re trying to come back after being down. And boy did they ever.
They come back roaring. At the start of the third period, they decided to pull Sergei Bobrovsky and give backup goaltender Samuel Montembault a chance to take over the reins and he responded in a big way for the Panthers. The third period belonged to the Panthers. 50 seconds into the third period, Aaron Ekblad scored, assisted by Keith Yandle and Aleksander Barkov, to make the score 4-1. Three goals left to tie up the game.
At the 5:26 mark, Frank Vatrano scored on the power play, assisted by Jonathan Huberdeau, to make it 4-2. At the 9:43 mark, Mike Hoffman scored on the power play, assisted by Keith Yandle and Jonathan Huberdeau, and made it 4-3! This was it. This was for all the marbles and at least one point. At 18:21, Montembault headed towards the bench, the extra skater was about to hop on the ice, and right as that happened, Keith Yandle scored to tie up the game!
I was at a watch party last night with a whole bunch of other fans and some members of the Roar Corps (the Panthers energy squad) and when I tell you this place erupted in cheers and excitement, the place went absolutely crazy. It was awesome! It wasn’t over yet though, as there was still overtime.
Montembault made some spectacular saves. The overtime winded down with no goals scored from either team and so now the Panthers were in a familiar spot… a shootout. They had just beat the Rangers on Sunday in a stellar shootout. Would they be able to do it again? The first goal scored in the shootout was scored by Vincent Trocheck. Then it was Charlie Coyle from the Boston Bruins.
There was another stopped goal by Montembault so it all came down to Hoffman. He approached Rask and he ended the game with a goal. Not only was this the largest comeback win in franchise history, we also have Huberdeau, who is now tied for most assists in franchise history, meaning that the next assist he has will make him the all-time leader in assists in franchise history which is absolutely remarkable.
He has a chance to make history on Thursday night when the Panthers take on the Winnipeg Jets. Will the Panthers continue their win streak and will Huberdeau make history? We shall see. One more glorious stat to point out before I end this exciting article is this: the Boston Bruins have now lost four straight games!! That’s all I have for now. Until next game, Let’s Go Cats!!!!