To wit, they need not more shots, but better ones.
"The Grade-A chances, which for me are the type that go in at a 33 percent level when you total them all up, we only had eight of them," Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said Thursday. "We had a lot of B chances, probably another 12 of those, but they go in at less than a 17 percent level. So we've got to get more Grade-A chances."
That, along with better communication on defense, is the focus for the Bruins, who lead the best-of-7 series 3-2 heading into the game at FLA Live Arena (7:30 p.m. ET; TNT, CBC, TVAS, SN, BSFL, NESN), a game that the Bruins hoped would not happen.
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They may have another tool in their toolbox. Center David Krejci is traveling with the team to Florida. But, as Montgomery said, "He's got a couple of more boxes to check before we can say he's a player."
The Panthers may have one fewer, with forward Ryan Lomberg day to day with an upper-body injury that caused him to miss Game 5.
The Panthers have pushed harder than, perhaps, the Bruins anticipated, a push that has only gotten stronger as the series has gone on. Part of that may have come from the status of Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov who, according to coach Paul Maurice, was ill heading into the series and has gotten healthier since.
"He was so sick before Game 1," Maurice said. "He's gotten better each game as he's recovered. I thought the two days off (between Games 4 and 5) for him were critical."
In the end, the Bruins believe it was the mistakes that had left them here, the miscommunication and the miscues that led to three of the four goals they allowed to the Panthers in Game 5. Miscues that, in theory, they could clean up by simplifying their game, the way teams tend to do on the road.
"Just communication on goals against needs to be higher," Montgomery said. "That's probably the biggest takeaway where we need to improve, and we need to improve at getting to the net. We had a lot of shots but not enough with either people at the net or taking the shots from good areas."
The improvement starts with David Pastrnak.
The 61-goal scorer in the regular season has two goals in the playoffs, fewer than teammates Taylor Hall (five), Brad Marchand (four) and Jake DeBrusk (three).