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PANTHERS 2, BRUINS 1
Florida denies Bruins
By Nancy Marrapese-Burrell, Globe Staff, 2/19/2001
SUNRISE, Fla. -- They ripped backhanders and fired fore handers. Hard shots, slow shots, low shots, high shots.
They even changed goaltenders. They tried everything to right the ship over the final 30 minutes last night.
But, in the end, the Bruins were foiled by the remarkable performance of young Florida goalie Roberto Luongo and their own horrendous start in a 2-1 loss.
Once the netminder of the future for the New York Islanders -- he was taken with the No. 4 pick overall in the 1997 draft -- Luongo is the goaltender of the present for the Panthers.
On this evening, he was impenetrable except for a Boston goal scored during a two-man advantage.
The high point for Boston was right wing Bill Guerin potting his 30th goal of the season, tying his career best. Guerin's goal at 14:14 of the middle period started a surge of pressure from Boston that lasted the rest of the game, but Luongo was equal to the task with a total of 25 saves.
But the Bruins never could recover from a very sluggish start, which angered coach Mike Keenan to the point of apoplexy.
"It was all about not being prepared to play the game in the first period," said Keenan, who has harped on this point many times. "Again, it's a mystery. I guess it's not a mystery. They still haven't matured to be prepared to play every night. That's very unfortunate."
Keenan said it was a spillover from the third period of Thursday's game in Tampa when the Bruins sat on their lead.
"They weren't prepared [against Tampa] and that's the problem," he said. "They relied on [goalie Peter] Skudra to stand on his head for them. [They got a big lead] and they didn't play hockey after that.
"They followed up and came to this game and thought it was going to be easy. It's just an incredibly tough group to teach what it means to be prepared to play every night. There are no freebies. If they can't respect teams yet, I don't know what kind of lesson . . . I guess they're just not at the bottom of the barrel yet. I guess it means missing the playoffs again to learn it, I don't know."
Keenan said this team ranks among the toughest of any he's been hired to motivate.
"I can't say that's carte blanche across the board, but there are too many people in this locker room who have taken this for granted," he said.
Florida took a 1-0 lead at 8:58 on a goal by center Viktor Kozlov.
The Pathers tallied what turned out to be the winner with 11.3 seconds remaining in the first as Florida sniper Pavel Bure tallied his 39th. Defenseman Hal Gill skated the puck from right to left around his own net and started up the ice. Bure followed the mammoth defenseman and stripped him of the puck, then raced in and beat Skudra with a low forehander for his eighth goal in three games.
The Bruins showed a lot more life in the middle period as they climbed back within a goal.
Center Jason Allison came close at the 48-second mark with a backhand wraparound try at the right post, but Luongo denied him.
At 5:53, perhaps sensing his team needed a jolt, Keenan pulled Skudra in favor of John Grahame, who made his season debut after missing several months with a broken ankle.
After Guerin's goal, the Bruins continued to put pressure on the Panthers. With 1:52 left in the second, and the teams skating four a side, center Brian Rolston had Luongo down and out. But Rolston's shot wasn't high enough, and though Luongo was lying on his side, the puck went right into his glove.
The Bruins continued their barrage in the third period, with Sergei Samsonov having great chances at 3:21 and 6:53, but Luongo stopped them both. Rolston, too, had another opportunity at 16:22.
But the one thing the Bruins haven't learned is to show up for the entire contest. "We weren't ready and there's no excuse," said Allison. "I don't know, we're winning some games and then you come in against a team like Florida that's way behind us in the standings and we think they're going to give us the 2 points. I mean, who are we? We're not that good."
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