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PANTHERS 3, BRUINS 0 Sutter gets shutout of Bruins in debut [ Game summary ]
You're never sure what to expect from the Bruins. Last night, with the exception of goaltender Byron Dafoe, they flat-out stunk and the result was a 3-0 loss to the Florida Panthers at the National Car Rental Center.
It was the fourth time the Bruins have been held scoreless this season.
The mood in the dressing room was dour.
''We should be playing with more desperation than we did tonight,'' said Bill Guerin. ''It's sad to see.''
The team was dead right from the get-go. It wasn't that the Panthers were very good either. The club fired general manager Bryan Murray and coach Terry Murray a day before, which usually results in the team being fired up. However, in the first period of this mess, neither club looked very interested in playing. Not much changed in the final 40 minutes either.
Bruins coach Mike Keenan said he suspected this one was going to be lousy as early as yesterday morning.
''I sensed it all day,'' said Keenan. ''They were pretty self-satisfied all day long. It's pretty disappointing more than frustrating. There's no explanation for it. We took a step forward prior to this [in beating the Islanders Wednesday] and two steps back tonight. I can't explain it and I don't know if anyone else can either.
''The team, I guess, gets very self-satisfied, for no reason obviously. They haven't won back-to-back games in three months. There's obviously something that's wrong in the dressing room. If I could tell you what it is, I'd be glad to. If it wasn't for Byron, it might have been 10-0.''
The last time the Panthers canned the coach also proved to be a memorable experience for Boston. On Nov. 26, 1997, after Doug MacLean (now Columbus's president and GM) was fired, Bryan Murray took over temporarily behind the bench and, once again, the Bruins were the first opponent. That resulted in Florida romping, 10-5.
Last night was just dreadful, with the Bruins and Panthers looking as if they were skating in cement shoes in the first period.
The Panthers got on the board at 18:15, taking a 1-0 lead on the strength of a Marcus Nilson goal.
The tally came during a delayed penalty after Bruins forward Andrei Nazarov inexplicably tackled center Serge Payer behind the net. Nilson, in the left circle, had no one near him and walked in alone on Dafoe.
In the second, the Bruins had a number of defensive breakdowns, leading to odd-man rushes by the Panthers, one of which resulted in Florida's second goal.
With 37.6 seconds left, defenseman Kyle McLaren got caught deep, allowing the Panthers to spring a 2-on-1 rush. Center Ray Whitney, who had a breakaway midway through the period, dashed up the left side with Scott Mellanby alongside. Defenseman Peter Popovic was the only player back and he did a good job taking away the pass across the slot, but the bad news was Whitney fired a shot from the left circle that hit the post and deflected past Dafoe at 19:22, giving the Panthers all the cushion they'd need.
''You can only jump when you have a third guy high and I didn't read it and it cost us,'' said McLaren.
Keenan elected to replace Dafoe with Peter Skudra at the 3:06 mark of the third. Skudra last played Dec. 12 against Buffalo. He served as backup to Dafoe the last five before getting into the action last night.
''I knew we weren't going to win,'' said Keenan. ''So I might as well give Peter some work. We had a power play and we didn't do a thing on it. If we had scored there, we maybe would've been involved in the game a little bit. But it was pretty obvious we didn't have any sense of urgency to play tonight, so it was an opportunity to get Peter some work.''
Skudra's teammates didn't help him either. Pavel Bure, who had five shots in the period and a game-high total of seven, closed out the scoring with a power play goal at 17:16.
''Same old stuff, you know?'' said tight-lipped captain Jason Allison. ''We had nothing.''
This story ran on page G1 of the Boston Globe on 12/30/2000.
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UNRISE, Fla. - Feast or famine. Great or lousy. Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde.