The Bruins did their best to make things interesting, but it didn’t take long to realize the Florida Panthers were the better team in their second-round series that concluded Friday.
Boston just didn’t have enough of a scoring punch.
It’s always easy to enter an offseason wanting to go big-game hunting, but after slogging through a series where they got elite goaltending and nothing to show for it, that’s exactly what the B’s need to do. Jeremy Swayman has arrived, so you can’t continue to allow him to lose games where he’s the best player on the ice.
The Bruins scored 13 total goals against the Panthers, surpassing the two-goal mark in Game 1 and failing to do so for the remainder of the six-game series. Do you think that’s sustainable?
No, neither do we.
Boston has some really promising pieces to build with. David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm are locked in for the foreseeable future, while Pavel Zacha, Charlie Coyle, Brandon Carlo and Andrew Peeke are all still on multi-year deals. Mason Lohrei, John Beecher, Justin Brazeau and Matthew Poitras are building blocks. Swayman is entering restricted free agency, and despite the fact that locking him up for the future is your actual top priority this offseason, there’s no shot he’s playing anywhere but Boston next season.
If the Bruins can add a legitimate top-six scorer, the pieces could fall into place nicely.
Zach Hyman is as consistent a player you can find, and he’s coming off a career-best scoring season with the Edmonton Oilers. He’ll be a free agent. Jake Guenztel and Elias Lindholm are at similar points in their careers, but could immediately transform the Bruins’ top line into a deadly unit alongside Brad Marchand and… perhaps one another. Steven Stamkos and Sam Reinhart, who you just saw, are ringers on the man-advantage.
You can make sweeping judgements about Pastrnak’s lack of goals, but in watching things play out against Florida, it became clear it wasn’t for a lack of opportunities. Boston’s offense was being engineered by one man for long stretches, and Sergei Bobrovsky’s unbelievable play was overshadowed by Swayman’s.
The Bruins will have more than $20 million to spend this offseason, and there’s no reason to not make a push to give the guy some help.
