The Boston Bruins and Florida Panthers turned TD Garden into a full-on street fight on Sunday afternoon, and the Bruins walked out with the cleaner scoreline and the bigger statement. Boston beat Florida 3-1 in a game packed with scraps, scrums, heavy hits, and a mountain of penalty minutes.
It started ugly and stayed that way. On the opening drop, Nikita Zadorov and Brady Tkachuk dropped the gloves to set the tone immediately. By the end of the afternoon, the two teams had piled up 126 penalty minutes combined.
Boston wasted no time taking control on the scoreboard, either. The Bruins struck twice in 81 seconds to jump out to a 2-0 lead, and Mikey Eyssimont added another big moment in tight after relentless work around the net. Eyssimont has been on a heater wherever he’s played, with 13 goals in 8 AHL games before his call-up, including a natural hat-trick for the Providence Bruins on Friday night.
The first period turned into a parade to the penalty box. Officials handed out six minors between the teams in the final 14 minutes of the opening frame, and Boston made the most of the early Florida mistakes. After two clear Panthers penalties, including a vicious two-handed slash by Aaron Ekblad, the Bruins got a 5-on-3 for 1:53 and converted when David Pastrnak fed Morgan Geekie for a blast from the lower circle.
That goal extended Geekie’s run to four straight games with a goal.
The calls kept coming, and not all of them sat well with the Bruins. Fraser Minten was whistled for a phantom interference, giving Florida another power play, and Carter Verhaeghe buried a one-timer from the slot with 1:55 left in the first period to get the Panthers on the board.
If the opening period was chaotic, the second was pure mayhem. The teams combined for 52 penalty minutes in the middle frame, with every whistle seeming to trigger another scrum. Nikita Zadorov and Hampus Lindholm both picked up 10-minute misconducts at the end of the period, leaving Boston down to four defensemen for the first half of the third while protecting a 3-1 lead.
Florida never found a way back in. Instead, the Bruins shut the door quickly in the third, with Pastrnak setting up JJ Peterka for a clean finish to make it 3-1. From there, Boston kept Florida at arm’s length and handled the rest of the afternoon without much trouble.
The Panthers kept adding to their own problems. Matthew Tkachuk was ejected after earning a 10-minute misconduct with eight minutes left, following another minor penalty. Brady Tkachuk later got tossed as well after going after Mark Kastelic, and Kastelic also received a 10-minute misconduct for the exchange.
Through all of it, Jeremy Swayman stayed steady and sharp, finishing with 40 saves in the win.
The Bruins now get three days off before hosting the Montreal Canadiens at TD Garden on Thursday in a game that will be for first place in the Atlantic Division as it stands.
In Other News...
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For the Bruins, the bigger issue is less about whether Larkin is available and more about whether there is any realistic path for Boston to get involved at all. The speculation around Detroit has not stopped with Larkin, either, with other names like Simon Edvinsson also floating around as the Red Wings weigh their options. For now, though, the market appears to be defined by one preferred destination and a lot of uncertainty everywhere else. [Read more 🡒]