After steamrolling through the 2022-23 regular season, the Boston Bruins were primed for a deep postseason and why not? They set the NHL record for wins and points in a regular season and general manager Don Sweeney went all-in at the trade deadline to set up his team for the playoffs.
However, after building a 3-1 first-round series lead over the Florida Panthers, the unthinkable happened to the Black and Gold. They were unable to close out the pesky Panthers, who won Game 5 in overtime in Boston before winning a high-scoring affair in Game 6, before scoring in the final minute of Game 7 to force overtime and winning it in the extra session. Just like that, the hopes and dreams of the Boston Bruins and their fans were gone. However, the question should be asked, "What if the Bruins eliminated the Panthers in the 2023 playoffs?"
What if the Bruins eliminated the Panthers in the 2023 playoffs?
This will be a question that will be asked for a very long time. Up 3-1 in the series, the Bruins had a number of chances to close out Florida, but didn't. The biggest chance was at the end of regulation of Game 5 when Brad Marchand had a breakaway only to be stopped by Sergei Bobrovsky with a second left. A goal there wins the series, and who knows what happened after that.
What winning the series did was start a run that shows no signs of slowing down for Florida. The Panthers took the momentum from that series to make a run to the Stanley Cup Final, where they fell to the Vegas Golden Knights, who just happened to be coached by former Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy, who was fired a year earlier in Boston. Could we have been that close to a Bruins vs. Bruce Cassidy Stanley Cup Final? Just maybe.
Florida hasn't showed signs of slowing down since eliminating the Black and Gold two years ago. They would eliminate the Bruins in the second round in 2024 on their way to winning the Stanley Cup. Then this past season, they acquired Marchand from the Bruins at the trade deadline and won a second straight Cup. Now they have inked Marchand long-term.
There have been some swings and misses by the Bruins in the playoffs, but this one will go down as likely the biggest after the regular season they had. It was the last chance for the Boston core to win a championship, but they failed. Some say they choked it away. If the Bruins win one of the final three games, things are different. You don't have the Florida back-to-back Stanley Cup championships, and just maybe, a dynasty is born.
If Boston had beaten the Panthers, things would be different today, and maybe, just maybe, Florida would go in a different direction in building their team. Maybe the Bruins go on to win the Cup, or maybe they don't, but things would be different today if the Bruins had not blown the series in the opening round, without a doubt.
