The Bruins could have moved closer to nailing down home ice for the first round of the playoffs, but after winning 12 straight games at TD Garden, the B’s fell to the non-qualified Panthers, 4-1.
BOSTON -- Individual NHL teams only exercise so much control over their schedules, but the Bruins might want to make an early request for 2019-20:
Keep the Panthers out of TD Garden at the end of the season.
Roughly one year ago, in the very last game on the NHL schedule, the Panthers -- fresh from falling short of a playoff berth -- flew to Boston for a game that meant nothing to them and beat the Bruins, for whom the game carried great meaning: Had they won, they’d have finished first in the Eastern Conference and faced the No. 8 seed Devils in Round 1 of the playoffs. The loss sentenced them to what became a seven-game first-round battle with the Maple Leafs that the Bruins won, but which used up a great deal of their energy.
Saturday’s matinee at the Garden didn’t come quite as late in the season, and there wasn’t quite as much at stake, but it was similar enough.
The Bruins, who had earned points in 14 straight home games since Jan. 19 and won their previous 12 at the Garden, dropped a 4-1 decision to the Panthers (again, freshly eliminated) that complicated pursuit of the only goal they can achieve by the end of the regular season -- a second-place finish in the Atlantic Division, with home ice for Round 1 against the Leafs.
“We still want to build for the future, don’t get me wrong,” said Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy, who fiddled with his forward lines in the third period, trying to ignite a comeback. “We have four more games for that, but … what’s in front of us is second place. I’d like to get there.”
The Bruins still held a six-point lead over the third-place Leafs when they left the Garden to fly to Detroit for Sunday night’s game, but the Leafs hadn’t played their road game against the last-in-the-league Senators. As of Sunday morning, both teams will have four games to play over the final week of the regular season.
“We’ve got to bounce back quickly,” said fourth-line center Noel Acciari, who scored the Bruins’ only goal. “Quick turnaround, continue with our style of play.”
The Bruins didn’t play their style much on Saturday, except for on the defensive side: Tuukka Rask only had to face 22 shots.
The B’s, however, pressured Panthers goalie Roberto Luongo less and less as the game wore on: The landed more shots on goal in the first period (16, all stopped by Luongo) than they did in the second and third combined (15). The Bruins didn’t enjoy the same good fortune around the net as the Panthers, who took a 1-0 lead 13:37 into the game when a Riley Sheahan deflection hit B’s defenseman Matt Grzelcyk (first game after missing eight with an arm injury) and found the net, but they probably didn’t deserve many breaks, either.
“We just were not crisp with the puck,” Cassidy said. “Another day, if we had a little more puck luck, we might squeeze out a point or two and win, but we certainly wouldn’t walk away and say ‘Boy, this was one of our better ones.’”
Rask, who lost for the fourth time in his last six starts and second start in a row, had the same type of day as his teammates: No luck on Sheahan’s goal, not enough help on Evgenii Dadonov’s rebound strike that followed just 2:07 later, no excuse on the shorthanded goal by Troy Brouwer in the second period. It came just 1:07 after Acciari’s backhand swat of his own rebound brought the B’s within 2-1, with 6:48 to go in the second period.
“I had a bad read,” Rask said. “That’s one of those shots you would like to save, especially in a 2-1 game on a power play. But I didn’t.”
Then again, the Bruins didn’t score any more goals against Luongo, either.
“We just didn’t play as well as we wanted,” said winger Marcus Johansson, who didn’t make it through his first full game on the Bruins’ top line with Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron: David Pastrnak replaced him for the third period; Johansson moved back with Jake DeBrusk and David Krejci. “Florida did a good job, but we’ve got to be better.”