There’s an awful lot to like and unpack from what was indeed the best Bruins win of the season Tuesday night in Florida.

From the Bruins’ willingness to play Florida’s rough style to the Bruins erasing three separate deficits to the team actually hanging on when protecting a one-goal lead for the final two and a half minutes of play in a 5-on-6.

But if there’s one thing that shines above the rest — yes, even above Trent Frederic hammering a puck like it owed him money — it’s that the Bruins responded to a callout from head coach Jim Montgomery after Montgomery hammered the Bruins for their finish in Philly and a sloppy practice in Boston on Monday. (Montgomery went as far as to say that the Bruins weren't ready for the playoffs.) But, again, the B's responded, and did so in a way where it was the Black and Gold’s leaders who carried the team to victory.



If you’ve heard a Montgomery press conference or any sort of interview for more than 10 seconds, you’d absolutely pick up on the rarity of it all. Montgomery keeps everything inside the B’s locker room. Even when he wants to criticize a player, he’ll often let some of his thoughts slip, but catch himself before he goes fully in on a player. You can’t blame him there.

It’s a reason why the guy who held Montgomery’s job before him got his walking papers despite some strong results.

So, for Montgomery to take the kid gloves off and go in on his team ahead of their flight to Sunrise, it meant something.

And how his team would respond to that meant even more.

With this being the first time that Montgomery has truly played this card in his almost two years on the job in Boston, if the Bruins came out flat and no-showed some 31 hours after called out by their coach, that would’ve been an absolutely brutal blow. Across the board, really. It would’ve opened the door to those often-hyperbolic talking points of people wondering if this team had tuned out their coach or if they simply didn’t have the intensity to rise to the challenge before them. Neither would’ve been a particularly thrilling development with the playoffs less than a month away.

The Bruins falling into an 0-1 hole on the first shot of the night and beginning the night outshot 7-1 didn’t help.

But led by their top talents, the Bruins regrouped, rallied, and put together perhaps their most impressive win of the season. A win that saw the Bruins overcome three separate deficits, and finish the job with a 5-on-6 survival that came with key plays from every player Montgomery will rely on down the stretch. And against a team they may very well face in the playoffs.

“There’s gonna have to be more to give in three weeks because it goes to another level, but I just liked the way our team kept competing,” Montgomery said following his team’s 4-3 victory over the Panthers. “We battled for each other, we were in every battle for each other, and we stuck together, and that’s what we need.

“I liked the way we didn’t get off the path. We just kept playing the right way.”

And, again, it was Boston's best who carried the load in this victory.

Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy got things cooking with a goal and an assist, and added six hits and three blocked shots. Captain Brad Marchand answered the Panthers' bully tactics by dropping the gloves with Niko Mikkola despite Mikkola having half a foot on him, and later adding the primary assist on Frederic's game-tying marker.

And what an absolutely MONSTROUS game it was for both David Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha.

Beginning with Pastrnak, it was Pastrnak who delivered a solid reverse hit on Matthew Tkachuk to help the Bruins maintain possession in the Florida zone en route to McAvoy’s goal. And on the second goal, Pastrnak’s forechecked forced Niko Mikkola to hurry a rim along the wall that was picked off by McAvoy and ultimately fed back to the net for Pastrnak’s second-period strike. Pastrnak also came through with the primary helper on Zacha’s game-winning goal, and made two massive late-game plays with the Florida net empty, with a huge defensive-zone clear with the Panthers swarming on Jeremy Swayman’s net and then a strong pesterin’ to deny the Panthers one last clean entry.

Overall, Pastrnak was on the ice for all four of Boston’s goals in this one, and was on the ice for zero goals against.

Zacha, meanwhile, collected a goal and an assist and won 11 of his 14 battles at the dot, including a 5-for-5 mark in the attacking zone. Zacha also went a combined 5-for-5 against the Panthers’ Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart.

These guys may very well hold the key to Boston’s playoff run.

Is it time to split the Lindholm-Carlo pairing for a bit?

Last week, I had a simple question for Bruins coach Jim Montgomery. I asked him how he felt about the grind that’s been put on his go-to shutdown pairing of Hampus Lindholm and Brandon Carlo. Fed hard assignment after hard assignment night after night with no relenting, I wondered if that grind was beginning to take its toll on the duo.

Montgomery admitted that he had two separate, long conversations with Carlo just checking in on him and making sure he’s good, but that he had no worries about his second pairing because of his belief in them. And while I share his belief that this duo can and has been good given their insane deployment from a difficulty-of-assignment standpoint, I do wonder if the Bruins should consider splitting them up for a little bit.

Together for almost 13 minutes of five-on-five time Tuesday night, the Lindholm-Carlo pairing was on the ice for two goals against, while the Panthers held a 10-2 on-ice advantage in shots with the duo on the ice. Of course, the Lindholm-Carlo was once again given a huge assignment, as they spent the majority of their evening against the Carter Verhaeghe-Sam Bennett-Matthew Tkachuk line, but the goals against are beginning to stack up.

Since Lindholm returned to the lineup on Mar. 9, the Lindholm-Carlo pairing has been tagged for nine goals against in just under 107 minutes of five-on-five play. The Bruins, meanwhile, have surrendered just six goals in 234 minutes of five-on-five play with Lindholm and Carlo off the ice over that span.

The continued insane usage of Lindholm-Carlo as a defense-first pairing certainly has something to do with that (their 9.09 offensive-zone faceoff percentage is the lowest in the league among pairings with at least 100 minutes since Mar. 9, with the second-lowest pairing checking in at 31.18 percent), but the Bruins may be hitting a point where it’s in their best interest to see if they can split these guys up to get ’em both going as individuals.

Now, what I will say is that I do think this was a better game for Lindholm that the numbers will show. At least when it came to his second-half recovery, I thought he had a strong defensive-zone play behind the Boston net to deny a Sam Reinhart chance in the middle frame, and Lindholm came through with a key block on Tkachuk in the waning moments of this victory with the Florida net empty. Carlo, meanwhile, was part of the late-game kill that left the Panthers mad as hell, and was the focal point of Tkachuk’s post-loss hissy fit (meaning he did his job).

Of course, maybe this is nothing more than a pairing not getting the saves or shutdowns that they’re used to — or, again, the natural perils of being a defense-first pairing and the inevitable on-ice exposure it comes with — but these are two defenders the Bruins can’t afford to lose from a confidence standpoint between now and Game 1.

Everything else

– Not his finest work when you look at the 18-for-21 line in the box score, but a strong finish from the Bruins’ Jeremy Swayman in this one. Swayman, who was effectively burned on his first shot faced and then again a minute after the Bruins tied things up, finished strong and kept the Panthers at bay in the second half of this game. The defensive effort in front of him helped, sure, but Swayman simply needed a dub in the worst way. He got it, and it included a big-time save with the Bruins clinging to their one-goal lead in the final minute of play. Now comes building on this.

- There’s absolutely zero reason for the Bruins to take Johnny Beecher out of their lineup. Another strong night in an extremely limited role, with Beecher on the board with one hit, two shots, and wins in seven of his nine faceoffs in 9:30. If you ask me, it’s down to Jakub Lauko, James van Riemsdyk, and the wild card Pat Maroon for one spot in the lineup.

- In 11:43 of five-on-five play, the Parker Wotherspoon and Andrew Peeke pairing held a 5-2 on-ice edge in shots, and 1-0 edge in on-ice goals. This has been the best of the three different third pairings the Bruins have trotted out since acquiring Peeke from the Blue Jackets at the trade deadline.

Uo next: The Bruins will have a quick turnaround with a Wednesday head-to-head against the Lightning in Tampa. The Bruins are 1-0-2 against the Bolts in 2023-24.

Ty Anderson is a writer and columnist for 985TheSportsHub.com. He has been covering the Bruins since 2010, and has been a member of the Boston chapter of the PHWA since 2013. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Beasley Media Group, HockeyBuzz.com or any subsidiaries. Yell at him on Twitter/X: @_TyAnderson.

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