BOSTON — There’s always a good reason for the Bruins to be mad at the Panthers.
Sam Bennett’s cheap shot knocked out Brad Marchand. Matthew Tkachuk fought David Pastrnak dirty. This call was missed. That hit was a cheapshot.
The latest was A.J. Greer hitting David Pastrnak from behind in the first period of Florida’s 4-3 win over the Bruins at TD Garden on Monday.
All of those things are worth getting angry about. But as has too often been the case, the Bruins have had a good reason while the Panthers get the win. Victorious trumps righteous every time.
Unlike the teams’ game in Florida a week ago, Boston had Jeremy Swayman back in goal, Matt Poitras at forward and were playing at home. The Panthers were missing two important pieces. The Bruins were the favorite.
But even without Tkachuk, a future first-ballot inductee to the Agitation Hall of Fame, the Panthers still got under the Bruins’ skin. Boston goes into these games genuinely planning to be disciplined, really, really intending to not take the bait
But then they do. Just about every time.
On Monday Greer hit Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha, hardly a scrapper most of the time, jumped in and fought him. Should Greer have gotten a penalty? Probably, but it was hardly the only uncalled infraction of this game or the worst one in this rivalry.
But Pastrnak came up bleeding and Bruins’ composure disappeared. Charlie McAvoy cross-checked Carter Verhaeghe to the ice and then gave him another one for good measure. The Boston defenseman’s undisciplined penalty was costly. Six seconds into the ensuing power play, Sam Reinhart scored a goal that put Florida ahead and gave the Panthers momentum for the rest of the game.
“They’re winning the mental side of the battle on us. I love what Pav did. He went in and defended him. That’s great,” Montgomery said. “But the penalties after that? It’s just not disciplined. You can’t win hockey games that way.”
That was the costliest, but not the only bad penalty. Pastrnak himself was called for an unnecessary interference later in the period that led to another penalty to kill.
The Panthers are good at this. They’re not only skilled, but they’re excellent at knocking another team off of its skill. They know when to slide the needle in and when to pull the string. Greer refused to drop gloves with Mark Kastelic — a much better fighter than Zacha — and Gustav Forsling declined a bout with Marchand. It looks cowardly when it’s happening, but it works as the Bruins were left with no productive outlet for their angry energy.
Victorious trumps courageous too.
The Bruins are generally a very good hockey team against pretty much everyone else and a too-often-distracted bunch against Florida.
Sticking up for each other is great until it goes over the line. Against Florida, by the time the Bruins identify that line, it’s already behind them.
Until they beat Florida in a playoff series, the Bruins will never really be over losing them in the playoffs in 2023 or 2024 and that frustration has leaked into the two regular season games this year. This Bruins team, which features at least five guys who weren’t part of the second-round playoff series against Florida last year, is still figuring how to play together. They now have until Jan. 11 to learn how to do it effectively against the Panthers
“We’ll work on it and move forward,” Marchand said. “At the end of the day we need to be better.”