"We built in that game," Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said of his team's steady progression throughout the contest. "What happened is Spencer Knight was really strong in the first period. You get that good feeling from your goaltender, and I think we really fed off that."
Earning an early power play, the Panthers took advantage and opened the scoring when Sam Reinhart, who has been red hot as of late, tapped a perfect pass from Tkachuk past Jeremy Swayman and into the cage from right on the doorstep to make it 1-0 at 1:49 of the first period.
In the waning minutes of the period, the Bruins gained a 5-on-3 power play for 1:05 after two quick penalties from the Panthers. Capitalizing right away, Charlie McAvoy locked, loaded and blasted a shot past Knight from the slot to even things up and make it 1-1 at 17:14.
Of Knight's 37 saves, 18 came in the opening 20 minutes.
"He was huge in the first, and I thought earlier in the second they had some really good looks that he came up huge on," Tkachuk said of the 21-year-old netminder. "The game was 1-0 us, 1-1, 2-1 us, and he made some huge saves to allow us to get that lead. He was unreal tonight."
Regaining the lead for the Panthers in the second period, Anton Lundell finished off a really pretty looking tic-tac-toe passing sequence with Nick Cousins and Reinhart by ripping a wicked wrist shot straight past Swayman from just a bit inside the left circle to make it 2-1 at 4:41.
Padding the lead on the power play, Aleksander Barkov tipped a shot from Brandon Montour past Swayman to make it 3-1 at 15:31. The 66th power-play goal of his career, Barkov is now tied with Scott Mellanby -- yes, "Mr. Year of the Rat" himself -- for the most in franchise history.
Capping off an outstanding middle frame, Tkachuk extended his goal streak to four games when he tipped a shot into the cage on the power play to up the lead to 4-1 at 19:46.
"Within two or three feet of the net, he gets his stick on everything," Maurice said of Tkachuk.
Getting their second extended 5-on-3 power play of the game in the third period, the Bruins trimmed their deficit down to 4-2 when David Pastrnak connected on a one-timer at 6:20.
Putting the game to bed and netting the 100th goal of his career, Aaron Ekblad locked in the win for the Panthers when he buried a long empty-net goal to make it 5-2 with 2:10 left in regulation.
Handing Boston only its third loss of the season, the Panthers improved to 10-8-2.
"We're not where we want to be in the standings," Barkov said. "We haven't been winning as many games as we'd want to, but at the same time it's all about building our game and feeling more and more comfortable on the ice and later in the season. I think we're building the game. At the same time, we need to win some games. Against Boston, it was a huge win tonight."
