Bruins searching for answers following Game 3 loss to Panthers

BOSTON -- The Boston Bruins were not good enough Friday in Game 3 against the Florida Panthers. They were not good enough at taking shots and not good enough on the penalty kill. They were not good enough at generating offensive-zone time and not good enough at clearing pucks. They were not good enough at the start and not good enough at harnessing an emotional charge from Game 2.

They were not good enough at a lot of things.

But instead of blaming his players, Bruins coach Jim Montgomery took the heat on himself.

“We’ve got to get better,” Montgomery said. “I have to give the players a better plan. Florida was significantly better than us and I’ve got to come up with a better game plan.”

It was yet another confusing and uneven effort for the Bruins as they made their return to TD Garden for Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Second Round. They had taken a game from the Panthers down in South Florida, giving themselves a chance to wrest control of the series heading back to their home building.

Instead, they lost 6-2 to the Panthers. The best-of-7 series now stands at 2-1, Florida.

“I don’t think we’re on top of our game,” Montgomery said. “Our execution, to be honest, the last two games, with our last two periods of last game (a 6-1 loss Wednesday) and the first two periods of tonight has just not been good enough. That’s why I say that’s my fault. I’ve got to be better.”

There were, however, glimpses of the team these Bruins can be. They were pressing in the second period before Mason Lohrei got unlucky on a high-sticking double minor on Steven Lorentz, a penalty that the Panthers cashed in on twice to make it 3-0.

“That really changed the game,” Montgomery said.

In the third period, the Bruins stormed back for two quick goals, by Jakub Lauko (5:01) and Jake DeBrusk (8:31), to cut the Panthers lead to two. But it was too late.

“I think our effort and execution has to be better,” DeBrusk said. “Obviously they’re a very good team. You could see what they do when you kind of take your foot off the gas, per se. I don’t think that we’ve been our best throughout the series. I don’t think they really have either.”

The Bruins could not get shots on net early -- or late, really -- a problem that plagued them at times in their first-round series against the Toronto Maple Leafs. The shots on goal were 13-3 after the first period and didn’t get much better after that, with Boston getting just 17 in the game.

It didn’t help that Brad Marchand was not present for the third period. The Bruins forward took a heavy hit from Sam Bennett in the first period. Marchand appeared slowed by the hit through the second and did not play after that with the upper-body injury.

But he wasn’t the only of the Bruins’ top players missing, in some ways. The Bruins have not gotten production from some of their biggest players in the series and the Stanley Cup Playoffs, with little generated by Charlie McAvoy or Pavel Zacha or even David Pastrnak, even as Montgomery called him one of the team’s two best players in Game 3 (along with goalie Jeremy Swayman).

“I think guys like myself need to get better,” DeBrusk said. “I think I just need to get better in general. But I think us offensive players, especially on special teams, playing both sides of the puck, need to fill that gap.”

But how? How to counteract the Panthers’ forecheck? How to get themselves back into the series and into Game 4 here Sunday (6:30 p.m. ET; MAX, truTV, TBS, SN, TVAS)?

“I think it just dumbs down to winning more battles,” defenseman Brandon Carlo said. “I think from our standpoint getting to the pucks first as defensemen, moving it to our guys as fast as possible and winning your 1-on-1 battles. They’re on top of us a lot, they’re getting good sticks on pucks and that’s one of their strong suits. We’ve got to work our way around that and I think we can.”

That will be the task ahead, as the Bruins head back to the drawing board on Saturday for a rare mid-playoffs practice. They will need to figure out why they weren’t engaged, why they weren’t intense enough and good enough to match the Panthers.

“I don’t know,” Montgomery said, when asked about the Bruins lacking push. “It’s not good enough, that’s all I know. Florida was good. We weren’t. Move on to the next game.”

But even as Montgomery took the blame on himself, trying to focus the eyes away from his players, they weren’t about to let him do that.

“We’re the ones that are out there,” DeBrusk said. “We’re the ones that are playing in the game. He can put [in] any plan that he thinks is going to help us out and we’re going to go through with it. But at the same time, we’ve got to execute. I think that’s just what the nuts and bolts of the playoffs are, is honestly just making an extra play. Making the right one or making the right decisions and obviously we didn’t do that.

“Against a team like that, you have to play a pretty perfect game and the last two games you’ve seen what happens when we don’t.”