5 things to watch for in the Boston Bruins/Florida Panthers series
When the Stanley Cup Playoffs begin on Monday, the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Boston Bruins will host the Florida Panthers in Game 1 of their first-round series.
The Atlantic Division rivals faced off four times in the regular season, with each team emerging victorious two times. Boston ended the season with a historic 65-12-5 record, while the Panthers finished 42-32-8, claiming the last of eight Eastern Conference playoff spots.
Boston comes in boasting the NHL’s top defense and really no weaknesses through its lineup. Florida brings an impressive offense to the table that it hopes will be enough to upset the top-seeded Bruins.
What should fans keep an eye on in the Bruins/Panthers series?
Every series in the Stanley Cup Playoffs is defined by key matchups and turning points. To get you ready for the Bruins and Panthers, here are five things to watch in this first-round series.
Goaltending
On one side of this matchup is about as much certainty as a team could have when it comes to goaltending. The Bruins bring Vezina Trophy favorite Linus Ullmark into this series with the also impressive Jeremey Swayman behind him.
No matter what happens, Boston is going to feel comfortable with the player that it has tending the twine. Ullmark led the NHL in save percentage (.938), goals against average (1.89), and wins (40). Swayman followed closely behind, ranking fourth in the first two categories.
For Florida, however, three goalies split time this season, and none of them were overly impressive.
The two goalies that the Panthers expected to have leading the way this season, Sergei Bobrovsky and Spencer Knight, each posted a .901 save percentage and a goals against average above three.
30-year-old Alex Lyon, meanwhile, set a career-high in games played (15) while leading the Cats with a .914 save percentage and 2.89 goals against average.
While Boston will have confidence in either of its netminders, Florida should have questions about all three of theirs. If a Panthers goalie can get hot, this series could become competitive. If the goaltending on each side looks like it did in the regular season, this series will be over quickly.
Matthew Tkachuk vs Boston Defense
In his first season as a Florida Panther, Matthew Tkachuk set a new career high with 109 points, up five from last year’s 104 while with the Calgary Flames. His team-leading mark was 31 points better than any of his Panthers teammates, and he ranked tied for sixth league-wide.
Without question, Tkachuk has been one of the NHL’s most potent scorers in the last couple of seasons, so if the Cats are going to win this series, it will have to start with their 25-year-old star.
Boston, however, is not a team that is easily scored on. This matchup of one of the league’s top scorers and the league’s best defense should be fun to watch.
In the regular season, it was a matchup that directly correlated to each club’s head-to-head wins and losses. Tkachuk notched four points (one goal and three assists) in the Panthers’ two wins over the Bruins, while he managed only one assist in their two losses.
If Florida wants to advance to round two, Tkachuk is going to have to be at his best.
Special Teams
Special teams are always critical, whether it’s the regular season or the postseason, but with as dominant as the B’s have been all season long, the Panthers cannot afford to lose this battle.
Both teams had similar power plays, with Florida coming in at 10th in the NHL (22.8%) and Boston coming in at 12th (22.2%). However, the penalty killing situations looked significantly different. The Bruins had the league’s best PK (87.3%) while the Panthers were 23rd (76.0%).
If the Cats can’t improve upon their regular season numbers, this is an area that could propel the Bruins to a first-round victory. Conversely, this is an area in which the Panthers could draw even with their Atlantic Division rivals if they can find a way to come up big in special teams moments.
David Pastrnak
The Bruins sniper scored 61 goals this season, second in the NHL only to Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers. Further, he notched one goal in each of Boston’s regular season meetings with Florida.
I’ll make a similar argument here to the one that I made earlier when speaking about Matthew Tkachuk. Pastrnak’s ability to produce at a level similar to the one at which he produced in the regular season will be key to determining this series.
The difference here is that there is not an elite defense opposing him. Whether or not Pastrnak is able to have an explosive first-round series will be determined exclusively by him. Given his two hat tricks in the month of April, I see no reason to think he’ll slow down in this series.
Presidents’ Trophy Curse?
NHL fans know all about the curse that comes with being the best team in the regular season. The last time a team won both the Presidents’ Trophy and the Stanley Cup was in 2013 when the Chicago Blackhawks did it in a shortened season.
Last year, that curse fell on the shoulders of the Panthers who won in round one before being swept out of the postseason in round two. This year, the burden of overcoming the curse falls on the record-setting Bruins.
So, this point is two-fold. The most obvious part is that Boston will be dealing with more pressure than any other team in these playoffs. Can the B’s do what hasn’t been done in a decade and win a championship in spite of having won the Presidents’ Trophy?
For the Panthers, can sneaking into the playoffs and drawing a David versus Goliath-type first-round matchup actually be a good thing? It wouldn’t be the first time that a step back in the regular season has led to more playoff success (looking at you, 2018 Washington Capitals), so maybe this is a blessing in disguise.
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It’s also worth noting that the last time we saw a historic regular season was in 2019 when the Tampa Bay Lightning dominated for 82 games just to be swept by the Columbus Blue Jackets. Surely, the Bruins won’t meet the same fate, right?