First blood: 3 takeaways from the Boston Bruins game one win

One down, 15 to go.

Entering a first round series with the Florida Panthers, the Boston Bruins took care of business on Causeway Street, defeating the Panthers with a 3-1 win to take a 1-0 series lead to start the postseason.

Goals came from David Pastrnak, Brad Marchand, and Jake DeBrusk, with eight Bruins skaters in total registering a point. With that, it’s takeaway time!

Welcome to the playoffs Tyler Bertuzzi

Acquired from the Detroit Red Wings at the trade deadline, Bertuzzi was making his Stanley Cup Playoffs debut. He showed up for the game, getting assists on the goals from Pastrnak and DeBrusk, including a pretty sweet pass to Pastrnak for the first goal of the game. He finished with a +1 rating in 18:41 of ice time.

Playoff Marchand is back

Brad Marchand has had lots of success in the playoffs. That’s well documented. He scored what wound up being the game winning goal in the second period, beating Panthers goalie Alex Lyon from a considerable distance.

Marchand’s goal was the 50th postseason goal of his career, becoming just the second member of the Bruins to reach 50 playoff goals. The other is current president of hockey operations Cam Neely with 55 goals in the playoffs.

He’s also one of eight active players with 50 playoff goals. Alex Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Joe Pavelski, Nikita Kucherov, Patrick Kane, and Corey Perry are the others to reach 50 goals in the postseason.

This is a different Linus Ullmark

Last postseason, Bruce Cassidy gave Linus Ullmark the start against the Carolina Hurricanes in game one. He only made two starts, mustering only an .860 save percentage before Jeremy Swayman took over between the pipes. He got the start in game one this year as well, but it’s more deserved this time around.

Ullmark showed exactly why he should be the starter in the playoffs with a stellar game one performance. He made 31 saves on 32 shots from the Panthers, giving him a .969 save percentage on the night. He was once again huge for the Bruins when they needed him to be.

Up next

Game two of the series is on Causeway Street on Wednesday night. Look for Ullmark to start in goal once again for the Bruins. As for the Panthers, it remains to be seen whether Lyon or Sergei Bobrovsky will start in net.