SUNRISE, Fla. — Jeremy Swayman stated the collection would return to Boston. And he backed up that declare in a giant approach.
Swayman made 28 saves, Charlie McAvoy added to the listing of disputed targets on this matchup with the go-ahead rating and the Boston Bruins staved off elimination by beating the Florida Panthers 2-1 in Sport 5 of their Stanley Cup playoff collection Tuesday night time.
The largest cease of Swayman’s night time might need been his final: He stoned Florida’s Sam Reinhart from shut vary with about 8 seconds left, and the Bruins — simply as he vowed — left Florida winners.
“We’ve got a goaltender that is extraordinarily assured,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery stated. “His swagger provides confidence.”
Morgan Geekie additionally scored for the Bruins, who improved to 2-0 in elimination video games this season — additionally they gained Sport 7 over Toronto in Spherical 1 — and eventually discovered a solution to maintain the Panthers’ offense in examine.
Reinhart scored for Florida, and Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 26 photographs. The Panthers had simply 4 photographs within the first, then bought 25 to Swayman within the last 40 minutes.
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“We had our missed alternatives,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice stated. “There is a dropping coach’s line: ‘We had our probabilities.’ I did not like our recreation. However I like the truth that from the place we had been within the first, we bought right into a a lot, a lot better place within the second and third.”
Florida — which noticed its collection lead lower to 3-2 — had 15 targets on 107 photographs in Video games 2, 3 and 4 mixed, all of them Panthers wins. However on Tuesday, the Panthers had been held to 29 photographs and Swayman seemed in complete management the entire approach.
Sport 6 is in Boston on Friday. Sport 7, if needed, can be again in Florida on Sunday.
“The fact is that we’ll go to Florida and we’ll play the identical recreation and we’ll get it performed,” Swayman stated after Sport 4. “I’ve little doubt on this group. And now we have quite a lot of confidence and quite a lot of motivation to convey it again to Boston.”
It is going again to Boston.
“I simply can’t thank my mentors sufficient for exhibiting me the best way and changing that phrase ‘nervous’ with ‘excited’ and simply being me and embracing moments,” Swayman stated after Sport 5. “That is once I discover essentially the most enjoyment, actually residing it to absolutely the fullest. And I could not be happier.”
Bobrovsky was pulled with 3:05 left, Florida going 6-on-5 in an effort to tie the sport, however the Panthers managed to get solely three pucks to Swayman the remainder of the best way.
The Bruins performed the second straight recreation with out their captain and main scorer Brad Marchand, who hasn’t been on the ice since late within the second interval of Sport 3 due to what Boston is looking an upper-body harm. He was hit by Florida’s Sam Bennett and wound up leaving that recreation, a play that the Bruins stated was soiled and has solely added to the depth of the collection.
Marchand was on the recreation, his jersey was hanging in his locker and he gave his staff pep talks between durations.
“We all know what he means to this group,” McAvoy stated. “We did not say die. We needed to see this factor return to Boston and provides him an opportunity to get proper and hopefully be again.”
Down 1-0 within the second, Maurice gathered his staff across the Florida bench throughout a TV timeout and used that stoppage in play to get some ideas out — at excessive quantity. Pink-faced by the point his rant was over, Maurice was pointing animatedly and had the eye of everybody from gamers to assistant coaches to even the staff’s tools employees.
“I believed they wanted some profanity of their life, and I introduced some,” Maurice stated.
Message obtained. Solely 11 seconds after play resumed, Reinhart lifted a rebound previous Swayman to tie the sport at 1-1.
“It appeared to show our recreation round slightly bit,” Reinhart stated of the Maurice rant.
However Boston had the lead once more when the second interval ended, after McAvoy scored a objective halfway by way of the body the place Florida — identical to the Bruins did on a giant objective for the Panthers in Sport 4 — claimed interference. Boston’s Danton Heinen made contact with Bobrovsky together with his stick, however NHL officers in Toronto stated it wasn’t sufficient to take the objective off the board.
“Tonight was our greatest recreation within the collection,” Montgomery stated.