On Wednesday night, the Boston Bruins went into the game with a 1-0 series lead. They were feeling good about their goaltending, their offense was clicking on all cylinders after defeating the Florida Panthers by a wide 5-1 margin, and following the game they were going home where they were hoping to snare the Cats in a net at the noisy coliseum they called home, the TD Garden.
Instead of joy and jubilation on the flight home, the Bruins were treated to a silent bus ride to the airport, and even quieter flight home, a la Billy Beane in the movie Moneyball.
With at maximum five games left in the series, at the wins knotted at one game apiece, here are two reasons that Boston fans should remain optimistic about the series, and one reason they should be worried about Florida.
Reason to not panic #1 - It's a seven-game series
Let's think rationally here. Yes, the Panthers are a good team. Yes, they just won the second game of the series, but the reality of it all is that every round of the playoffs is a seven-game series and the Bruins just proved in their first round matchup with the Toronto Maple Leafs that they can go all seven games and still win the series.
To top it all off, the series is tied at 1-1, it's not as if Boston is heading home with Florida ahead in the series 2-0. With that said, there is no real advantage to this series just yet other than the noise levels that opponents seem to have a gripe with every single time they play at the TD Garden.
Another thing about it being a seven-game series, is that there are five more chances for both teams to win three games. Although it's not ideal to lose in front of your home crowd, the Bruins have some flexibility where they can, not necessarily afford to give the Panthers the momentum, but not sweat it as much if they were to lose one of the next two games.
Reason to be optimistic #2 - The best goalie duo in the league
Let's go away from win counts for a second here, and look at the actual players on the ice for a little while. For Boston, it has one of the best goaltending duos in the league right now in Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman, and for Florida it has Sergei Bobrovsky and... Who? According to the box score it's Anthony Stolarz.
As a fan of the Panthers, I wouldn't be necessarily inspired if I found out the backup plan to Bobrovsky were anything to go wrong, injury-wise or performance-wise, was whose claim to fame was being a star-netminder for AHL Lehigh Valley, in the Philadelphia Flyers' system.
Bruins' fans though, have plenty of comfort in knowing that their backup is not only an NHL-caliber goalie, but he also won the 2023 Vezina Trophy. That's one heck of a goaltender to "fall back on" if anything were to happen to Swayman.
Reason to panic - Florida's powerplay figured it out
As Causeway Crowd's Scott Roche wrote, Florida's power play unit did score a goal in the game on Wednesday night - breaking a string of over 20-plus power play chances that opposing teams were unable to capitalize on.
Now, why is this significant? For the simple fact of, as many penalties as the Bruins were committing throughout the playoffs, they were consistently able to kill them off which always good, especially against a solid team like the Panthers who always seem to find a way to find the back of the net on the man-advantage.
Florida has scorers all over the ice from forwards Matthew Tkachuk and Vladmir Tarasenko all the way to defenseman Brandon Montour, all of whom take part in the power play in some way, shape, or form. Is it time to be in full-blown panic mode? No, but it is definitely something to take note of.
When/where is Game 3?
Game 3 is in Boston at the TD Garden on Friday night - puck drop is at 7:00 p.m. on TNT, TruTV and MAX.