FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The name keeps popping up on Boston Bruins coach Jim Montgomery's lips: Joe Sacco.
Though Sacco may not be the first name to occur to Bruins fans -- he's not Brad Marchand or Jeremy Swayman or even Mason Lohrei -- his imprint on Boston's run in the Stanley Cup Playoffs is clear.
Sacco is one of Montgomery's assistant coaches, the longtime architect of a penalty kill that's 23 of 24 in the playoffs. He's helped the Bruins get in position to take a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference Second Round against the Florida Panthers with Game 2 of the best-of-7 series at Amerant Bank Arena on Wednesday (7:30 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN, TVAS, CBC).
"There's a confidence when you go on a stretch like this," Montgomery said. "I also think Joe Sacco has a tremendous plan and the players really buy into his plan. They execute it really well and then [Swayman] is making a lot of saves."
Sacco has been a Bruins assistant since 2014-15 after coaching the Colorado Avalanche from 2009-13. He was hired by Claude Julien, coached under Bruce Cassidy and retained by Montgomery when he was hired before last season. And Montgomery is quick to give him credit where the penalty kill is concerned.
The Bruins are technically second in the playoffs in penalty-kill percentage at 95.8 percent, just shy of the 100 percent success rate the Edmonton Oilers had against the Los Angeles Kings in the first round, though the Oilers had to kill 12 power plays compared to 24 for the Bruins. Boston was 20 of 21 on the kill in the first round against the Toronto Maple Leafs, who were seventh in the NHL on the power play (24.0 percent) in the regular season. It led Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe to say of his team's inability to score with the man-advantage, "It's been a major factor in this series."
Their success hasn't changed now that they've shifted to a new opponent. The Panthers were eighth (23.5 percent) in the regular season, and the Bruins managed to outlast them on all three power-play chances in Game 1.
"They're top-level power plays," Montgomery said. "I think stick detail. I think we're holding the blue line. We're forcing dumps. What Joe does is he develops a plan to put them in their most uncomfortable situations that would give us opportunities to kill the penalty."
It helps that Swayman isn't letting much past him in any situation. He hasn't allowed more than two goals in any of his seven postseason starts, but it's not only him.
The Bruins have been led by defensemen Brandon Carlo, who is averaging 3:07 of short-handed time on ice per game, and Hampus Lindholm (2:53 per game). Among forwards, Charlie Coyle (2:17) and Marchand (2:02) have been excellent on the kill, which was 82.5 percent during the season, tied with the Panthers for sixth.
They've been even better -- nearly unbeatable, in fact -- in the playoffs and the kill continues to build on itself.
"It's good, it's high," defenseman Charlie McAvoy said. "We've always had a good penalty kill here in Boston. Joe does an outstanding job with it, so we take a lot of pride in it.
"I think there were times this year when it wasn't as good as we wanted it to be, but we didn't really change much. I think we believed in our structure of it, our overall principles, and we've seen it come back and give us success now. Obviously, that's something that we need to continue to do, play disciplined first, but when we get on the kill, make sure we're working in unison."
