Jumping out to an early lead in enemy territory, the Bruins broke the ice when Taylor Hall beat Alex Lyon with a shot from beyond the right circle to make it 1-0 at 2:26 of the first period.
Doubling the lead for the Bruins in the second period, Charlie Coyle set up shop just outside the blue paint and tipped a shot from Brad Marchand past Lyon to make it 2-0 at the 6-minute mark.
Keeping the Panthers in check, the Bruins led 12-4 in shots on goal in the second period.
"We'll look at that second period and say there's things we can do with moving the puck," Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said. "They were real good in the second and we had a bit of a challenge in how we were trying to move the puck. It snowballed a little on us."
While the Bruins played without both Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, the Panthers lost a player of their own when Aaron Ekblad collided with Charlie McAvoy in the second period. Despite returning to the bench later in the period, Ekblad did not come out for the third. No immediate updates on Ekblad's status were available after the game, but more information is expected to be available tomorrow.
Keeping their foot on the gas in the third period, the Bruins padded their advantage when David Pastrnak slipped behind the defense and buried a shot from the left circle to make it 3-0 at 8:32.
Following that goal, Sergei Bobrovsky replaced Lyon in net for the Panthers.
"He's played heavy pressure games, and a lot of them," Maurice said of Lyon, who's started each of the last 11 games. "At 3-0, in my mind, if we mount a comeback it's not because our goalie stands on his head. We've got to get some action going. I've got another goalie who's a really, really good goalie that hasn't played in a long time. There's a risk, right? You put in a guy that's been sitting for a while, but he needs a little bit of action. That's all that was."
Not giving Bobrovsky time to settle in, the Bruins added another goal when Nick Foligno collected a centering feed from Hall and buried a backhander to make it 4-0 at 11:45.
On the penalty kill, the Panthers finally got on the board when Gustav Forsling beat Linus Ullmark on a 2-on-1 rush for a shorthanded goal to cut the deficit to 4-1 at 14:41. Not going down without a fight, Sam Reinhart then scored with the goalie pulled to make it 4-2 at 15:59.
After allowing five goals in Game 2, Ullmark stopped 29 of 31 shots in Game 3.
"We had a good push," Forsling said of Florida's finish. "We gave it all we had at the end there, but we want to come out early and play better early so we don't get ourselves in that situation."
