A fate of a magical, record-breaking regular season for the Bruins will come down to one game.

On Florida ice with a chance to put the Panthers away after failing to do so in Wednesday’s Game 5, the Bruins and Panthers combined for a staggering 12 goals, but it was the Panthers who scored the all-important 11th and 12th goal of the night in a 7-5 victory at FLA Live Arena.

• Boston’s second straight loss in a closeout game came back to a familiar issue in this series, as the Bruins once again gifted the Panthers freebies, beginning with a Connor Clifton turnover that gave the Panthers an easy two-on-one opportunity that made it 2-1 Florida, and just 7:43 after Tyler Bertuzzi tied things with a power-play goal.

• Matthew Tkachuk restores Florida's lead with a rebound tally on the rush, 2-1 Panthers!#TimeToHunt pic.twitter.com/rp47QHMydN

  — Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights & News (@HockeyDaily365) April 29, 2023

• Knotted up at 2-2 in the second period behind an all-world power-play goal from David Pastrnak, the Bruins appeared to take the lead when Brandon Carlo zipped a point shot through the Panthers’ Sergei Bobrovsky.

  But a coach’s challenge from Paul Maurice confirmed a ‘hand pass’ from Jake DeBrusk 12 seconds before Carlo’s shot beat Bobrovsky, and what would’ve been the first Boston lead of the evening was wiped off the board.

  The Panthers used that to their advantage, as yet another defensive-zone collapse from the B’s less than a minute later opened the door for Aleksander Barkov’s first goal of the series, scored at the 9:22 mark of the second period.

• Brandon Carlo’s goal was taken off the board due to a hand pass.
  
  The hand pass: pic.twitter.com/oAH5WrF1EI

  — Evan Marinofsky (@EvanMarinofsky) April 29, 2023

• Through the bad breaks, however, the Bruins kept on fighting.

  A Bertuzzi snipe a minute and a half into the third period brought the sides even at 3-3, and a Pastrnak power-play goal just 2:21 later gave the Bruins their first lead of the evening.

  But in what quickly became a third of a maddening third period, the Panthers responded just 3:28 later with a Zac Dalpe goal with the Connor Clifton-Derek Forbort pairing hemmed in their own zone.

  Jake DeBrusk responded with a shorthanded goal that by all means could’ve and should’ve served as the backbreaker for the Panthers in a win-or-die contest, but Matthew Tkachuk attacked the Boston net without much resistance and slammed home a second-chance whack on Linus Ullmark just 27 seconds after the DeBrusk marker.

• TKACHUK RESPONDS! Matthew Tkachuk jams home the loose puck on the power play to tie it back up at 5!#TimeToHunt pic.twitter.com/pCnCBKh6id

  — Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights & News (@HockeyDaily365) April 29, 2023

• Then came yet another defensive-zone giveaway, and from Clifton once again, and that was all the Panthers’ Eetu Luostarinen needed to beat Ullmark for what would hold as the game-winning tally for Florida.

  Boston had their chances to tie it — the Bruins made a strong 6-on-5 push but failed to get their best look on a David Pastrnak one-time shot through to Bobrovsky’s net — but could not beat Bobrovsky before Sam Reinhart sent it down ice for the empty net goal that made it a 7-5 final in favor of Maurice’s squad.

• 

  Apr 28, 2023; Sunrise, Florida, USA; A fight breaks out early in the first period game between the Florida Panthers and the Boston Bruins in game six of the first round of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs at FLA Live Arena. (Jim Rassol/USA TODAY Sports)

• The Bruins welcomed center David Krejci back to the lineup after a three-game absence due to an upper-body injury. Back between Pavel Zacha and David Pastrnak on Boston’s second line, Krejci finished Game 6 with one hit and three blocked shots in 17:44 of time on ice.

  With Krejci back, fourth-line energy wing Jakub Lauko sat as a healthy scratch, while Trent Frederic and A.J. Greer remained scratches for the Bruins up front. The decision to hold Frederic out came a day after Montgomery noted that Frederic was a ‘strong candidate’ to rejoin the lineup in Game 6.

  On the backend, the Bruins threw Connor Clifton back into the mix. It was a night to forget for Clifton, really, as he finished with a minus-3 rating in just 13:21 of action. With Clifton in, Matt Grzelcyk joined Jakub Zboril to make up the Bruins’ healthy scratches on the backend.

  Game 7 will be Sunday at TD Garden.

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