In Sunrise, Florida, Jeremy Swayman blocked 38 shots, Brandon Carlo scored a goal shortly after his wife had their son, and the Boston Bruins beat the Florida Panthers 5-1 in Game 1 of their second-round playoff series on Monday night.
Morgan Geekie, Mason Lohrei, Justin Brazeau, and Jake DeBrusk also scored for Boston, who now have a 5-0-0 record against the Panthers this season. Pavel Zacha assisted on two goals for the Bruins, who scored three goals in the final 7:08 of the second period to turn a 1-0 deficit into a 5-1 lead.
Matthew Tkachuk scored for Florida, which has come back from a 1-0 deficit to win an NHL playoff series only twice in nine previous opportunities, one of which was last year against Boston in Round 1. Sergei Bobrovsky blocked 24 shots for the Panthers, who were playing for the first time in a week.
Game 2 will be in Sunrise on Wednesday night.
Swayman has been the goalie for all five of Boston’s wins so far in these playoffs and was outstanding once again, just like in the Round 1 series against Toronto that ended with a Game 7 overtime thriller on Saturday night. He stopped all seven shots he faced on Florida’s three power plays, having the best stats of any goalie in these playoffs.
In seven playoff games, Swayman has made the most saves in the league with an impressive goals-against average of 1.43.
This was the first one-sided game of the five this season between the clubs, who finished 1-2 in the Atlantic Division with Florida first at 110 points and Boston second at 109 points. Boston won all five in the regular season, three by one goal and the other by two, but Florida was either tied or ahead in those games 78% of the time.
This one was different. Once Boston took the lead, the Bruins, who have successfully come back from 1-0 deficits in four of the five games with Florida this season, went completely airtight defensively.
Swayman let in the first goal to Tkachuk, the Florida star’s fourth of the postseason, midway through the second after he and Bobrovsky had a goalie duel for the first 31 minutes. He didn’t stay behind for long.
It only took Boston 67 seconds to tie the game, with Geekie scoring from a loose puck in front. And the lead came 3:25 later, when Lohrei scored his first playoff goal by going over Bobrovsky’s shoulder from a tough angle.
That set the stage for Carlo to have a memorable day.
He didn’t travel with the Bruins to South Florida on Sunday, staying behind because his wife Mayson was about to give birth. She gave birth to their son Crew on Monday morning, in time for Carlo to catch a plane for the three-hour trip south. He arrived at the arena after the rest of his teammates, but in time to be in the lineup, and he scored with 21 seconds left in the second period, giving his team a 3-1 lead.
Brazeau secured the win with 12:47 left, getting past the Florida defense and scoring against Bobrovsky with a backhander. The Panthers pulled Bobrovsky with 5:30 left, and DeBrusk scored an empty-netter about 2 minutes later.
___
AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
