Back in the lineup after missing a little more than a week with an upper-body injury, Colin White appeared to open the scoring for the Panthers less than a minute into the game when, following his shot on goal, Linus Ullmark was pushed across the goal line by one of his own teammates.
But on the play officials deemed there was "intent to blow the whistle," so no goal was awarded.
Escaping the aforementioned sticky situation unscathed, the Bruins then opened the scoring when Connor Clifton pounced on a loose puck right around the blue paint and lifted a shot over Spencer Knight's blocker into the top of the cage to make it 1-0 at 10:51 of the first period.
Doubling the lead for the Bruins less than five minutes after Clifton broke the ice, Brandon Carlo wired home a shot from the high slot in transition to make it 2-0 at 14:04. Not done there, Charlie Coyle then beat Knight with a far-side shot from the right circle to make it 3-0 at 16:07.
Carrying that momentum into the second period, David Pastrnak cashed in on the power play to increase Boston's lead to 4-0 at 1:38. Down but not out, the Panthers then kickstarted a push of their own when Sam Reinhart potted a rebound to cut into the deficit and make it 4-1 at 3:02.
Feeding off that goal, Eric Staal teed up a pass from Gustav Forsling and ripped a one-timer from the right circle past Ullmark to make it 4-2 at 5:42. Pulling the Panthers within one, Carter Verhaeghe then slipped the puck under Ullmark and across the goal line to make it 4-3 at 8:21.
All three of Florida's goals were scored within a span of 5:19.
"Once we got going, we had a lot of jump," said Verhaeghe, who upped his team-leading goal total to 17. "I thought we had a really good second period and gave ourselves a chance to win the hockey game. They were up 4-0, but we had a chance. We just fell short."
