BOSTON (AP) — The Boston Bruins are done, with a long offseason to think about their failure to capitalize on the greatest regular season in NHL history.
The Florida Panthers are moving on, thrown right into their second-round series against the Toronto Maple Leafs beginning Tuesday night.
“Game 7. Overtime win. Against pretty much the best team in regular-season history. It’s unreal,” Panthers center Aleksander Barkov said after Florida beat Boston 4-3 in OT to eliminate the record-setting Bruins from the playoffs. “For sure it’s up there, and it’s hard to understand right now. I don’t think we need to understand right now. We’ll understand later.”
Brandon Montour tied it with 1 minute left in regulation, and Carter Verhaeghe scored the game-winner at 8:35 of overtime. The Panthers won three straight after falling behind 3-1 in the best-of-seven series.
Boston, the Presidents’ Trophy winners with NHL records of 65 wins and 135 points, had not lost three in a row all season.
“The fact that we were able to do what we did after what they did all year … they’re an unreal team and the best I’ve played in my NHL career. The fact that we were able to beat them was crazy,” Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk said. “Let’s be honest: Nobody in the whole world thought we were going to win that series except for the guys in that room.”
Sergei Bobrovsky made 33 saves for Florida, which advanced in the postseason for just the second time since reaching the Stanley Cup Final in 1996. They will face Toronto, which finished off the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday in six games.
“I don’t think you can find a harder team to play against than the Boston Bruins. They will test you,” said Florida coach Paul Maurice, who improved to 4-0 in Game 7’s in his career. “The players here now have a shared experience of what hard is. … It will make us better for five years. That’s how hard it was.”
Boston rallied from a two-goal deficit to take a 3-2 lead, but Maurice pulled Bobrovsky in the final minutes and called timeout with 88 seconds left to give his players a breather. Montour tied it with his second of the game.
Maurice, who was on the Winnipeg bench when the Jets eliminated Presidents’ Trophy-winning Nashville in the second round in 2018, admitted his confidence was waning.
“We’re down a goal with under two minutes to go against Boston. I wouldn’t bet everything, because the match doesn’t add up,” he said. “But when…