The Florida Panthers and Boston Bruins are ready to meet again in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, this time in the Eastern Conference Second Round.
Game 1 of the best-of-7 series is in Florida on Monday (8 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN, TVAS, CBC).
Last season, the Panthers, as a massive underdog, erased a 3-1 series deficit and won Game 7 in overtime, an abrupt ending after a historic regular season by the Bruins.
Now, Florida, the Atlantic Division champion, is the slight favorite against a Boston team that went seven games against the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round. The Bruins held a 3-1 series lead but needed overtime in Game 7 to advance.
The Panthers advanced with a five-game victory against the Tampa Bay Lightning, who were the first wild card from the East.
Boston went 4-0-0 against Florida during the regular season, with two of those wins coming in overtime.
Who will win this second-round series full of revenge and intrigue? That’s the question before staff writers Amalie Benjamin and Tom Gulitti.
Benjamin: The obvious answer is that the Panthers will defeat the Bruins in their second-round series. But why take the obvious choice? I’m instead looking at the X-factors, not just the regular season, where the matchup favored the Bruins. Boston went 4-0-0 against the Panthers this season, four games when they played some of their absolute best hockey. But I’m also looking at the revenge the Bruins will be out for after losing to the Panthers in seven games in the first round last season after going up 3-1 in the best-of-7 series. Add in the fact that the Bruins might have gotten some of their kinks out in a grueling seven-game series against the Maple Leafs -- and the Panthers could have gone cold during their week off -- and I think the Bruins can try to ride their emotions and their momentum into a couple of early series wins. It sure won’t be easy, but hockey can be a game of intangibles. These Bruins have been tested and they passed (if narrowly). They’ll bring that against Florida.
Gulitti: I don’t know if the Panthers are the obvious answer to who will win this series, but I think they are the favorites this time after being heavy underdogs when they met last season. Back then, Florida barely squeaked into the playoffs as the second wild card from the East and the Bruins were the Presidents’ Trophy winners who set NHL records in points (135) and wins (65). After playing through some injuries at the start of this season and finishing first in the Atlantic Division, Florida looks like the same team that reached the Cup Final last season before losing to the Vegas Golden Knights and is driven to get back there and win it this time. The Panthers dispatched the Lightning in five games in the first round and will enter this series with confidence from defeating the Bruins last season and the belief they are a better team than a year ago. Carter Verhaeghe (five goals, four assists) and Matthew Tkachuk (three goals, six assists), who were the scoring heroes against Boston last season, each had nine points in the first round. And, unlike last season when Alex Lyon was the Panthers’ starting goalie at the beginning of the series, Sergei Bobrovsky is in top form after being voted a finalist for the Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s best goalie.
Benjamin: You want to talk goaltending? I’ll talk goaltending with you. Jeremy Swayman stood on his head throughout the entirety of the series against the Maple Leafs, culminating in allowing just a single goal-against in Game 7. He finished the series with a 4-2 record, giving up just two goals against in each of the losses, with a 1.49 goals-against average in the series, with a .950 save percentage. And that’s against the second-best offense in the regular season in the Maple Leafs (3.63 goals per game). But I don’t expect the Bruins to just use Swayman in the series; I expect them to go back to Linus Ullmark as well. Ullmark, who allowed three goals on 34 shots in his only start against Toronto, was outstanding against the Panthers in the regular season, going 3-0-0 with a 1.62 GAA and .957 save percentage, and Swayman won his only start against Florida, allowing three goals on 21 shots. The goalies give the Bruins the utmost confidence and, if as Matthew Tkachuk said Sunday that the series might be a low-scoring contest, the goaltending might be the difference-maker for Boston.
Gulitti: I should at least get an assist for setting you up for the goaltending debate. There’s no question Swayman was outstanding against the Maple Leafs and during the regular season. I know that the Bruins rotated goalies all season, but they should stick with Swayman now and ride the hot hand. That Boston might switch to Ullmark at some point could benefit Florida; I think Bobrovsky can match either goalie, but even if that isn’t the case and the Bruins end up having a slight edge in that category with Swayman (if he plays every game), the Panthers are the deeper team otherwise. Florida had four players with at least 70 points during the regular season -- Sam Reinhart (94), Tkachuk (88), Aleksander Barkov (80) and Verhaeghe (72) -- and the Bruins had one -- David Pastrnak (110). Beginning the series without Sam Bennett (apparent hand injury) will hurt, but Florida can compensate at least briefly for that. And the Panthers’ defense, which has Oliver Ekman-Larsson in the third pair, is actually stronger than last season.
