In Sunrise, the Boston Bruins flexed their hockey muscles on Sunday and handed the Panthers a 6-2 loss in Game 4, on Sunday.
The Bruins head back to Boston with a 3-1 series lead.
Game 5 is set for Tuesday in Boston.
Taylor Hall scored twice in the final two minutes, the last into an empty net, for the 6-2 final.
Brad Marchand scored in the opening stanza, and Jake DeBrusk scored in the middle frame to give the Bruins a 2-1 lead.
“We have to be happy with the results, but we can still be better with our game,” Marchand said. “We did a great job responding to a little bit of adversity, but these games are over and done with and they have no bearing on how the next one’s gonna be played and, and the outcome of it.”
Both goals were scored off the Boston power play.
“They came up with a really good push, [Ullmark] allowed us to weather the storm and start going back at them,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “He’s been doing that for us all year. It’s amazing how calm I am when I see scrambles in front of his net because he’s calm.”
Matthew Tkachuk trimmed the deficit to 2-1 for the Panthers.
Linus Ullmark got the start for the Bruins, he made 41 saves, but left the ice with just over three minutes left on the game clock. He was assessed a game misconduct for a tussle with Tkachuk.
Jeremy Swayman made two saves in relief.
Boston scored four times in the third period to put an end to the Panthers chances.
Tyler Bertuzzi started the outburst early in the frame to give Boston a 3-1 lead.
Sam Bennett scored at 6:11 off the power play to get the Panthers back within one at 3-2.
“I loved our start,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “The game got away at the end by score, but not by scoring chances necessarily. We’d given up 11 even-strength shots through two periods. And the other guy made a couple of real good saves to kind of keep us from getting to be tied.”
But from there it was all Boston.
“We’re just gonna keep going,” Florida captain Aleksander Barkov said. “We had a good start. We want to have the same start and try and play the whole game. That’s our identity and that’s how we need to play.”
DeBrusk hit for his double at 8:05 for a 4-2 lead, ahead of Hall’s double.
“It was nice to see him get rewarded,” DeBrusk said of Hall. “He’s working hard and going into the hard areas. And it’s one of those things that we need everybody this time of year, and obviously you can see his confidence even that breakaway goal, it’s one of those things where it’s a little thing, but it kinda put the nail in the coffin.”
Sergei Bobrovsky made 25 saves in the loss, it was his first start of the series.
“It was good to be there for sure,” Bobrovsky said. “I was happy. I felt good. It was a great crowd, great atmosphere. It was a great game. It was a fun game, fun to be there and unfortunately we didn’t pull the win, but the series is still on.”
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