SUNRISE, Fla. -- Charlie McAvoy hopped over the bench. He saw what was developing, that the Boston Bruins had numbers coming down the ice and into the Florida Panthers’ zone. He saw that Andrew Peeke was coming for a change.
He saw the possibilities.
McAvoy jumped into the play -- “‘Chucky’ came off like an animal,” Charlie Coyle said -- skating directly from the bench and, after taking the pass from Coyle, down the slot, where he caught the pass from Coyle. Danton Heinen was battling with Oliver Ekman-Larsson in front of Sergei Bobrovsky.
“Started yelling right away and great play by him to have patience with that puck and to find me,” McAvoy said.
McAvoy shot. It went in.
The defenseman yelled in celebration -- and perhaps, relief. It was his first goal of these Stanley Cup Playoffs, his first postseason goal since May 29, 2021, in fact. And it put the Bruins up by a goal, 2-1, in a game that they needed to win to stave off elimination in their best-of-7 Eastern Conference Second Round series against the Panthers, which had been 3-1 heading into Game 5.
“What a shot to finish,” Coyle said.
But, hold on a second. The Panthers had opted to challenge the play for goaltender interference, a decision that set the Bruins on edge. Asked how he reacted to the review, McAvoy didn’t get a chance to answer before David Pastrnak jumped in.
“Oh, he was freaking out,” Pastrnak said. “I saw him.”
The goal would stand, the game-winner in the 2-1 victory Tuesday that allowed the Bruins to extend the series and send it back to Boston for Game 6 at TD Garden on Friday.
It was, by far, McAvoy’s best game of the series and the entire postseason, one in which he has been shaky at times.
“It’s nice to be rewarded for everything he does,” Coyle said. “Charlie does it all. He does it all, even when he’s not scoring. I know he wants to score and contribute, which he’s more than capable, we’ve seen it. But when he’s not, he just leads and leads.
“Whatever the situation calls for in a game, it’s like he comes and makes that big play. Tonight, it was the goal at that moment, but even besides that, it’s everything else he does within the game to make a big difference.”