BOSTON — A bowl of orange slices was left in Jakub Lauko’s stall. An uneaten chocolate coconut almond bar was left behind in Pavel Zacha’s locker. The trash can adjacent to Hampus Lindholm’s spot overflowed with water bottles and tape.
Head equipment manager Keith Robinson stacked rolls of white and black tape neatly in the corner of the dressing room. Assistant equipment manager Keith Babineau wiped off the blades of Dmitry Orlov’s skates and hung them above his locker.
Goaltending coach Bob Essensa slung his backpack over his right shoulder and walked out of the coaches’ office. Assistant coach John Gruden followed soon after, the collar of his shirt undone and his tie nowhere to be seen.
Everything in the room seemed like it usually does after a game.
But there are no more games. The Bruins’ historic season is over after Sunday’s 4-3 loss to the Panthers. Every regular-season accomplishment means nothing.
“Right now, it’s hard to process anything,” said Patrice Bergeron, his eyes still wet with tears. “We’re shocked and disappointed.”
Such conclusions are nothing new to Bergeron. Sunday marked the 12th time the 37-year-old lost his final game in the playoffs.
Bergeron’s pain, however, may have felt especially keen for two reasons. First, his 170th postseason game might have been his last. Bergeron suffered a herniated disc in his back in Game 82. Whether he wishes to put his body through more NHL hardship remains to be seen. Bergeron will take time to discuss his future with his family.
“Obviously, it’s very emotional,” David Pastrnak said of the possibility of saying goodbye to Bergeron and David Krejci. “You never know. You can’t stop time. You think about yourself as well. The career goes by fast. This one’s definitely going to hurt. As time goes the next couple weeks, months, it’s going to be more painful.”
Second, of all the years, this was the one Bergeron did not expect to end so swiftly.
The Bruins were the best regular-season team in NHL history. Bergeron (Selke Trophy), Linus Ullmark (Vezina Trophy) and coach Jim Montgomery (Jack Adams Award) can take home hardware in June for being the best at their respective positions. The Bruins were stacked everywhere. General manager Don Sweeney emptied his wallet in pursuit of trade deadline help.
All these things favored the Bruins in Round 1.
They grabbed a 3-1 series lead over a Florida team that didn’t qualify for the playoffs until Game 81. In Game 7, the Bruins poured three consecutive pucks past Sergei Bobrovsky to take a 3-2 lead into the final minute of regulation.
Shock always accompanies a premature ending. It is especially so with the 2022-23 Bruins.
Chokes hurt.
“It’s tough,” said Brad Marchand, the captain-in-waiting pending Bergeron’s decision. “We were hoping to make a good, long run here all together. It’s tough for everybody.”
The Bruins didn’t expect this to happen. They were at full health for games 6 and 7 following Krejci’s return. They were at home. Montgomery had the luxury of making Nick Foligno and Connor Clifton, important players during the regular season, healthy scratches Sunday.
But for too many stretches of Game 7, an unfamiliar problem flared up as it had throughout Round 1: fear.
The Bruins looked frightened. Too scared to make plays. Too quick to defer to a teammate. Meanwhile, the Panthers played with swagger and desperation and fearlessness throughout the series — elements that eluded the Bruins too often.
“I thought we were just looking to punt pucks,” Montgomery said. “Not playing our normal puck-possession game when we had it. I thought we defended and checked hard. But we were checking too much because of our puck play.”
The Panthers channeled their aggressiveness into the overtime winner. Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Bennett won their battles below the Bruins’ goal line. By the time Bennett got the puck to Carter Verhaeghe, Tkachuk did his job by setting a screen on Jeremy Swayman. The No. 2 goalie couldn’t get a bead on Verhaeghe’s release.
Swayman, meanwhile, was placed in a terrible spot: to win Game 7 after sitting for six straight. The Bruins did Swayman and Ullmark no favors by grinding the latter into dust. The Bruins had no choice but to ask Swayman to save the day.
He nearly did in overtime. Swayman foiled Tkachuk on a breakaway. Swayman had to turn back a two-on-one from Verhaeghe and Anthony Duclair after a Charlie McAvoy giveaway.
The goaltending mismanagement was just one reason the Bruins are now a punchline. They mismanaged the puck through Round 1. Montgomery shook up his lineup to the point where unfamiliarity settled in. Pastrnak didn’t elevate his performance until games 6 and 7. Lindholm struggled the entire series.
The Panthers deserved to win. The Bruins, in retrospect, were paper tigers. They could not meet the gravity of the situation.
So they were left to cry, hug, think about what went wrong and wonder about what comes next. They do not have answers.
“This is a tough one,” Marchand said. “We obviously expected much different results this year and this series. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. This one is going to hurt for a long time.”
(Top photo: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)
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