Winners of three in a row, the Boston Bruins were looking to make an early-season statement against the Florida Panthers on Sunday afternoon. Boston had been off since a 6-2 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday night, while the Panthers were coming off a loss against the Washington Capitals on Saturday.
The Bruins scored three goals early in the first period and rode the goaltending of Jeremy Swayman to a statement 4-1 victory to improve to 13-4-1 on the season. Here are three takeaways from Boston's seventh straight home victory.
Mikey Eyssimont scores in first game since being called up
When James Hagens was placed on injured reserve on Saturday, the Bruins announced that they were calling up Mikey Eyssimont from the Providence Bruins in the American Hockey League (AHL). It wasn't a surprise that Eyssimont was called up after he was on an AHL heater.
After practice on Saturday, Sturm didn't know if Eyssimont was going to be in the lineup against the Panthers, and as it turned out, it was, and lo and behold, he found the back of the net, because why not, right? Eyssimont poked home a loose puck in the crease past Jacob Markstrom for a 2-0 first-period lead.
Jeremy Swayman has a big game between the pipes
Eyssimont's goal was part of a three-goal first-period onslaught by the Bruins, which also saw Elias Lindholm and Morgan Geekie, on the power play, build a 3-0 lead in the opening period before Carter Verhaeghe tallied one late in the period for Florida on the power play.
In the end, that was the only shot to get by Swayman as he turned back 40 of the 41 shots fired at him by the Panthers. JJ Peterka had an early third-period goal for a 4-1 lead, but Swayman kept the three-goal lead with 14 saves in the final period. Boston had four power plays in the final period, which hampered the Panthers' ability to make a bigger push than they did.
Referees had had enough of Matthew and Brady Tkachuck's nonsense
When the Bruins got up 3-0 in the first period, you knew that it wouldn't take long for the Tkachuk brothers, Matthew and Brady, to muck things up and create chaos. It's what they do when things are not going their way. Of course, they did Sunday.
By the second half of the third period, the referees had had enough of their nonsense and slapped both with 10-minute misconduct and sent them to the locker room early for showers. Matthew tried to bait Fraser Minten into a penalty by punching him and grabbing him while the youngster didn't do anything. Matthew was immediately tossed, and Brady wasn't too far behind. Nobody should be surprised.
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