Three takeaways: Panthers deserved better against Boston, can find positives in OT loss

It’s never a good feeling when you leave the rink knowing you played a great game but still came come away with two points.

That’s what happened to the Florida Panthers on Saturday following their afternoon matchup with the Boston Bruins at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise.

Florida did just about everything better than Boston…except score more goals, falling to the struggling Bruins 4-3 in overtime.

It was Boston’s first win of 2025, snapping a six-game losing skid that stretched back to New Year’s Eve.

Florida can take solace knowing they did a lot of the things they look to do during any given game but just couldn’t get over the hump.

Let’s get to Saturday’s takeaways:

FRUSTRATING YET POSITIVE LOSS

Despite the lack of two points, Florida’s players and coaches probably left the rink feeling fairly good about how they performed on Saturday.

Florida outplayed the Bruins in most elements, it just didn’t translate to the scoreboard.

The Bruins finished the game with four goals on just 18 shots while the Cats scored three times on 43 shots.

Looking at the shot attempts, it becomes more apparent which team had their way with the other, as Florida held an eye-popping 111-39 advantage in that department.

“We come out to play a certain way and I think we did that really start to finish," said Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice. "The chances in the third (for Boston), the breakaways, that’s a function of us opening up the game, but we didn’t do it anywhere else. It was good, we played well.”

SO WHERE CAN THEY GET BETTER?

One thing the Panthers have consistently failed to do in several of their defeats this season is making life difficult on their opposing goaltender.

Saturday against Boston is a prime example of a game in which Florida gets plenty of shots on goal and zone time, but fails to generate an equal amount of quality scoring chances.

Whether that means taking away the goalie’s sight lines, getting right up in his kitchen (Matthew Tkachuk has no problem in this department) or converting on rebound and deflection attempts, the skills Panthers sometimes need to do better about showing off those talents.

“We’ll always find something we want to get a little better at,” Maurice said. “Maybe just our net front positioning, see if we can create a few more rebounds or get a stick on a puck.”

DESERVED TYING GOAL

The Panthers were playing from behind the eight ball seeming all afternoon.

Every time Boston scored, Florida clawed back to tie the game.

When the Cats were down 3-2 late in the third period, they pulled goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky for an extra attacker and were smothering the Bruins.

It looked as though Boston and their goalie, Jeremy Swayman, were going to survive with the regulation win, but Sam Reinhart scored a most deserving goal for the home team with only three seconds to go in regulation.

“We’ve had our goalie out a bunch of times and it never felt like it felt tonight,” Maurice said. We were right there. Credit to the guys for staying on it, right until the last second or two. I thought that was just, that it went in the net.”

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