The Florida Panthers rallied to beat the Boston Bruins 3-2 on Sunday night to take a 3-1 lead in their heated second round series, but Florida's big victory was not without its fair share of controversy.
It looked for most of the night like the Bruins were going to come up with a big win on home ice to tie the series at two games apiece, but Florida erased a 2-0 Boston lead to win 3-2.
The series now heads back to Sunrise with the Panthers just a win away from clinching their second straight appearance in the Eastern Conference Final.
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Controversial Call Lifts Florida Past Boston
David Pastrnak scored on the power play to give the Bruins an early 1-0 lead, and defenseman Brandon Carlo scored his third goal of the postseason to make it 2-0, putting the Bruins in the driver's seat for a potential season-saving win.
But Florida began to totally dominate the run of play, and the Panthers spent the entire rest of the game pushing back. Finnish center Anton Lundell finally broke the ice for Florida late in the second period, and the Cats knew they needed just one goal to get things back to even heading into the third.
Florida's potent power play got its chance to do just that, and Sam Bennett scored to tie the game on the man-advantage. Boston immediately challenged for goaltender interference, as Bennett had somewhat blatantly shoved Bruin Charlie Coyle into goaltender Jeremy Swayman.
Bennett had already been the center of scandal in this series, as his apparent sucker punch to Brad Marchand went unpunished and knocked Boston's star winger out of both Game 3 and Game 4.
Such an illegal maneuver should have voided the goal, but the league allowed it to stand upon review, stunning both the home crowd and the viewing audience at home.
With all the momentum in the world, Florida went right back down and scored again in the person of Aleksandr Barkov just three minutes later, taking control of the game and slamming the door shut from there to pick up the win.
While one of the goals was highly questionable, there was little doubt that Florida's comeback was ultimately well-earned. The Panthers absolutely dominated the game after Boston went up 2-0, outshooting the Bruins 41-18 and just having absurd control of the puck.
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