ECSF: Florida Panthers [ATL1] vs Boston Bruins [ATL2] - Florida wins 4-2

[midniteowl]

Bruins Win!!!

[butterfly]

Flip flops and a golf cart for the ride home

[TheIronMaiden]

#### the Panthers.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

wow. lots of haters in here tonight. cool.

Anyway, I'll sum this game up pretty quickly.

Aaron Ekblad sucked mooseballs tonight. I've been a big fan of him over his career, and even though injuries have reduced his effectiveness, he's still a good player most nights.

Tonight...was NOT one of those nights. I can pin at least 5 high danger chances and 2-3 goals directly on him. He was B-R-U-T-A-L out there. He gave the Bruins so many good chances it was ridiculous.

Then you have Swayman in GOD mode, with a lot of puck luck as well. The Panthers had a lot of good chances in scrums and chaos situations, but the bounces went the Bruins way. So be it, it's part of hockey, but the luck was definitely on the Bruins side tonight. Almost every good chance they had tonight went in, including a couple of ridiculous roof shoots in tight. Almost every good chance for the Panthers was stopped, sometimes purely by luck.

Bruins riding high on the last series, mixed with some very good goaltending, puck luck and some atrocious play by Ekblad equals a win in game 1. Everything went right for them. It'll be hard to reproduce that kind of kismet again in this series.

[FanIn80]

Chucky with some monster hits in the third.

Florida's been off for a week and they looked like it. They'll be back in game mode for the next one, and Boston's gonna start feeling the burn from going on 3 weeks of playing every second night.

We need Bennett though. Stat.

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

Did not see that start coming.

It makes sense though. Bruins have to be extra motivated to get back at FLA for last year.

I wouldn't be all that sad to see the Panthers get punted early.

[keenan87]

Screw the Panthers. Go Bruins!

[dino7c]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

Chucky with some monster hits in the third.

Florida's been off for a week and they looked like it. They'll be back in game mode for the next one, and Boston's gonna start feeling the burn from going on 3 weeks of playing every second night.

We need Bennett though. Stat.

uh,

[Locke]

I think we all understand that in a fight a Bear is going to beat a Panther.

[3rd liner]

Missed the game so watched the NHL in 30 version. Didn't expect such a lopsided score. The Brazeau goal shouldn't have happened, Lundell took a high stick in the B's end right before that. Anyways, probably didn't change the outcome as it was 3-1 at that point. Swayman looked amazing. Panthers will be better next game.

[FireGilbert]

Florida could really use someone like Weegar to take pressure off Ekblad.

[GullFoss]

Who needs a Kleenex?

[3rd liner]

Looking forward to the rest of this series. It's going to be a nasty physical one, as both the panthers and bruins can play that way. Panthers should have the edge in terms of offense with all that firepower, but with depth guys like Brazeau and Lohrei contributing for the B's who knows.
Here's the question- if it was B's and Oilers (god I hope not) in the SCF, who would Debrusk cheer for???

[trackercowe]

Bruins were up 3-1 and lost last year... then almost did the same to Toronto last round.

This is going to go 6 or 7 games. All the second round matchups are pretty tight, I don't expect any team to roll over and die... It would be nice if that happened to the Oilers, but we're not so lucky.

[Meers]

Brandon Carlo had a busy couple of days.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by butterfly

Yep. Definitely stairs.

Meh, that's silly stuff. You can do that for literally any team, while every single playoff team has had full sell outs. Hell, New York on Sunday had a full house, but also had rows upon rows of empty seats with promotional Rangers shirts on them for quite awhile on the broadcast.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

As I explain every time there's a broadcast, the camera points at the benches, and directly behind the benches is a special section called the Amerant Vault. All the seats on the lower level directly behind the benches are part of that special section. On the concourse behind the seats is a full private lounge area with free high end food and lots of it, along with a full bar, plush seating, lots of tvs everywhere with the game on, and a private set of bathrooms. It's like having your own very large private box that you share with a bunch of other people.

And just like a private box, people tend to watch part of the game in comfort back in the lounge instead of sitting in the seats. It's especially true at the start of periods...people take their time getting back down to the seats because everything is so nice back in the lounge.

Trust me, that building is packed to the gills. This isn't the Panthers of a few years ago where they had trouble drawing fans.

[Saqe]

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

This isn't the Panthers of a few years ago where they had trouble drawing fans.

Is this something that people still think? Attendance has been good for a few years now IIRC. This is from this year's playoffs and it was the same last year:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1785395024663908720

Regular season numbers are also top 10.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by midniteowl

Bruins Win!!!

[ForeverFlameFan]

Originally Posted by Saqe

Is this something that people still think? Attendance has been good for a few years now IIRC. This is from this year's playoffs and it was the same last year:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1785395024663908720

Regular season numbers are also top 10.

It’s almost like winning and attendance numbers have a direct relationship. Fairweather fans, because they’re everywhere, only want to go to games when their local team is good.