Los Angeles defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov, the deadline deal acquisition from Columbus who performed very well for the Kings’ down the stretch, was set to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1. For the usually sought-after commodity – a 27-year-old, 6-foot-3, 221-pound rugged defenseman who can also be useful in the offensive zone – it was normally the time for him to either re-up with his current team on a lucrative max eight-year contract or sit back and wait for the suitors to fall all over themselves.

Instead, Gavrikov signed just a two-year extension heavy on signing bonuses that will pay him a healthy AAV of $5.875 million.

Putting aside the ever-present risk of an injury that could change the trajectory of a career, the short-term deal is an understandable long-term play. The salary cap is only expected to go up by $1 million while, according to capfriendly.com, nearly half the league has less than $10 million in cap space, with those teams still needing to sign some of their own free agents.

On Friday, we saw a more traditional route, when the busy Blue Jackets pulled off a sign-and-trade with New Jersey for UFA-to-be defenseman Damon Severson, inking him to a generous max eight-year deal worth $6.25 million a season.

While Severson’s reportedly pushed for the max eight years – and it’s hard to imagine there’d be a much better deal for him in a year or two than the one he signed – Gavrikov bet on himself and the widely held belief that there will be a lot more financial fluidity across the league in a year or two when it’s expected that the cap will grow at a pre-pandemic rate.

So it appears there are a couple of paths than can be taken, and it will be interesting to see if the Gavrikov route would be of any interest to the B’s or their free agents.

Now, a short-term deal won’t do anything to alleviate the B’s most immediate problem, which is they don’t have much money to sign anyone until they offload salary. But presuming they do make the move or moves – whether it’s Taylor Hall or Linus Ullmark or Matt Grzelcyk or RFA Jeremy Swayman or even Brad Marchand – it would give the B’s some flexibility in the the next couple of years in case management comes to the belief that a real rebuild is in order in the post Patrice Bergeron/David Krejci era.

Of the two pending UFAs that hold the most interest in the open market – Tyler Bertuzzi and Dmitry Orlov – it would at seem the Gavrikov approach would fit the 28-year-old Bertuzzi more than it would for Orlov, who’ll be 32 by the time next season opens. Though it comes at an unlucky time for Orlov, now might be the best time for him to get as much as he can get in term and money on the open market. We were big fans of his all-round game, but it doesn’t seem like the timing is right for there to be a marriage with the B’s.

But Bertuzzi is still young enough to make a bigger score down the road if he signed just a one- or two-year deal. Would he take that gamble or would the siren song of free agency be just too hard to resist? We’ll see. But if the B’s can make that work, it could help them sort through what could be a couple of very uncertain years for the organization.

Brad can be had?

Speaking of the possibility of a Marchand trade, we have little doubt that the B’s have at least contemplated it – the team’s situation is that fluid – but the B’s have to tread very carefully.

If the B’s are to move him, it has to be for a prospect or prospects that would be future-altering for the organization and not a glorified salary dump.

Anyone can be traded and, if any deal that presents itself will stabilize the franchise for the future, the B’s should seriously consider moving the 35-year-old Marchand.

But not only is Marchand still an elite left wing, there are other factors to consider. The B’s were able to keep their highly competitive window open because players like Marchand took the long-term team-friendly deal that makes him a steal at $6.125 million. While the market-value deals Charlie McAvoy and David Pastrnak signed may have spelled the end of the hometown discount in Boston, at least for the time being, it wouldn’t be the worst message to send the message that the organization stuck with Marchand until the end of the deal.

Secondly, Marchand is the most logical candidate to succeed Bergeron as captain if Bergeron decides to retire. He not only has learned to strike the right tone when speaking for the team, his competitiveness is contagious both in games and in practice. While Bergeron has been the undisputed leader of the team the past couple of years, Marchand is a tone-setter. McAvoy and Pastrnak are both great players, but it’s not yet clear if those leadership qualities are in their DNA. Maybe they would grown into it at some point, but foisting that responsibility upon them before either of them are ready could be disastrous.

Kudos to Cronin

It’s hard not be happy for Greg Cronin, who at age 60 is getting his first NHL head coaching gig with the Anaheim Ducks. The Arlington native’s coaching career began 36 years ago at his alma mater, Colby, and took him to UMaine, Colorado College, back to Maine, to the national program, to the Islanders organization, to a six-year stint as head coach at Northeastern, to the Toronto Maple Leafs, back to the Islanders and most recently the head coach of the AHL Colorado Eagles.

That’s a lot of experience and dues paid.

Whether Cronin can see the Ducks through to being a true contender again remains to be seen, but he should help the Ducks’ talented young players like Trevor Zegras get a better handle on what’s important and what isn’t.

Net risk

While some may think it’s a foregone conclusion that the B’s move a goalie, it may not be that easy. The goalie trade market could be crowded. After the rebuilding Flyers got Cal Petersen in the three-team trade that saw defenseman Ivan Provorov land in Columbus, there has been reasonable speculation that the Flyers could look to move one-time hot prospect Carter Hart, who has had his issues behind a bad Philly team but could still be the real deal. He’s still just 24.

On top of that, there has been talk that Vezina finalist Connor Hellebyuck, who is entering the last year of his contract, could also be trade bait.

Considering that there are only so many teams looking for a No. 1 goalie, both Ullmark and Swayman could remain in Black and Gold.

Future goal scorer?

Finally, congrats to Pastrnak and his fiance, Rebecca, on the birth of their daughter, Freya Ivy, who arrived on June 2. Two summers ago, the couple suffered through unspeakable heartbreak when their first child, Viggo Rohl, died after six days.

On Friday, the joy was palpable in Pastrnak’s Instagram post announcing the birth.

“We’ve dreamt about this moment for a long time,” Pastrnak wrote. “I couldn’t be more proud of my two beautiful girls. I can’t wait to watch you be the best mamma to our little nugget.”

Just minutes before his former team the Toronto Maple Leafs’ introductory press conference for new GM Brad Treliving, the Fenway Sports Group’s Pittsburgh Penguins announced that they had hired Dubas.

Meow.

But the curiously timed announcement was not to say that Dubas was hired for the vacant GM’s job but rather that he’s the new President of Hockey Operations and that he’ll be interim GM until he hires someone for the job (i. e. another analytics-minded “progressive” candidate he can tell what to do).

If Leafs head hockey honcho Brendan Shanahan thought that Dubas was after his job, or a good chunk of his power, who could blame him?

But leaving all the power play drama aside, one thing is clear. The job that Dubas has in front of him is going to be a lot more difficult than the one he left behind, even without the frenzy that accompanies all things Leafs.

When Dubas was named Toronto GM by Shanahan in 2018, the building blocks of a very good team were in place. In the years prior to his ascension, they had drafted Morgan Rielly, William Nylander, Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews. In his first free agency period as a GM, Dubas beat out, among other teams, the Bruins to sign prized free agent John Tavares, whose desire to return home was strong.

But none of that brought post-season success. The Leafs finally broke the first round curse this year by beating the weakened three-time defending Eastern Conference champion Tampa Bay Lightning in six games, but promptly got bounced by the Florida Panthers in five.

He never quite got the goaltending or depth right. It looked like this might be the year, when he added former Selke Award winner Ryan O’Reilly and hit machine Noel Acciari, plus defenseman Sam Lafferty and defenseman Jake McCabe from Chicago. But the win over the Bolts proved to be his first and last playoff victory.

Now it’s on to Pittsburgh, where he inherits a good coach in Mike Sullivan (smartly given an endorsement by the new guy) and a trio of aging greats in Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, plus a couple of decent younger players in Jake Guentzel and Rickard Rackell. On Friday, Sullivan stressed the need to improve the team speed, and it certainly sounds like the coach and Dubas are in step with each other.

The defense corps, led by Letang and Jeff Petry, is just not very good. Like the B’s, Avalanche and Lightning, the Pens’ prospect pool ranks near the bottom of the league, thanks to years of going all-in at the trade deadline. The goaltending is a huge question mark. They have to figure out if Tristan Jarry, a UFA-to-be, is their man or not. Casey DeSmith appears to be a decent back-up but not the guy you want carrying the load. Sullivan hinted that they could be looking to go with more of a 1A-1B situation.

It all adds up to quite a challenge. In his time with the Leafs, fixing the defense and the goaltending was not exactly Dubas’ strong suit. We’ll soon see what and how much he learned while working in the Toronto fishbowl. …

Turmoil in Toronto

As for Treliving landing in Toronto, it was hardly the bold choice that the Leafs made when they elevated the then 31-year-old Dubas to the role of GM back in 2018. That doesn’t mean it was a bad choice. Time will tell on that, but Treliving’s run in Calgary was a mixed bag.

Treliving, B’s fans will remember, made a splash in the summer of 2015 when he facilitated recalcitrant defenseman Dougie Hamilton’s escape from Boston by handing over the Flames’ first-round pick and two second-round picks in a deep draft. Just three years later, Treliving had seen enough of Hamilton and decided to ship him, forward Michael Ferland and the rights to future Norris Trophy winner Adam Fox to Carolina for forward Elias Lindholm and defenseman Noah Hanifin.

Last summer, he was hit with a one-two punch when UFA Johnny Gaudreau decided to sign elsewhere and Matthew Tkachuk informed him that he had no plans to sign long-term.

Put in a bad spot, Treliving made the most out of it, getting set-up man supreme Jonathan Huberdeau and defenseman Mackenzie Weegar. With Tkachuk’s run to the Stanley Cup Finals, many have crushed Treliving, but he had to do something, especially in the wake of Gaudreau bolting.

And not that it matters in the overall scheme, but the Flames actually finished a point ahead of the Panthers in the league standings, but it wasn’t good enough to get into the Western Conference playoffs. Maybe if he had been just as proactive in firing old school coach Darryl Sutter when it was clear he wasn’t getting the best out of new star Huberdeau (he went from 115 points in his last year in Florida to 55 in Calgary), they might have nudged their way into the post-season.

Similar big decisions await Treliving in TO. With the fate of coach Sheldon Keefe twisting in the wind, Treliving’s stated No. 1 priority is gauging star Auston Matthews’ interest in remaining a Leaf beyond this upcoming year, his last under contract. His no-move clause kicks in on July 1. But Treliving made one thing clear. His vision for this team does not necessarily revolve around the supposed “Core Four” – Matthews, Marner, Tavares and Nylander – if there’s no way to move the ball forward with that group intact.

Yes, a Matthews trade would be mammoth. A deal for any of the other three could send out some shockwaves, too. But right now it doesn’t feel such a seismic move is as unthinkable as it once did. …

Coyote ugly

If you can’t make fun of the Arizona Coyotes, who can you make fun of?

Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy, who often says the quiet part out loud, appeared to get in hot water with, well, someone when he was bemoaning his team’s puck management during his team’s series with Dallas when he decided to add – God forbid – a little color to his commentary.

“We had 24 giveaways,” said Cassidy. “I’m not sure you’re beating the Arizona Coyotes in January with 24 giveaways. That’s no disrespect to Arizona, but it’s not the right way to play.”

The “no disrespect to Arizona” part should have had him covered. But no, Cassidy felt compelled to apologize the next day.

“It was disrespectful,” said Cassidy. “It was a dumb thing to say about puck management, to bring another team in.”

I get it that there are good hockey people working in Arizona and that there are some good players there as well. But the Coyotes have been propped up by the league for years. They play in a 5,000-seat college arena and their town essentially told them they could not care less if the team moved elsewhere. Someone, somewhere is awfully sensitive. …

Short summer for Sweeney

With the calendar turning to June, business will soon pick up for the B’s and GM Don Sweeney, who has a lot of work to do. Presumably, he’ll have an idea by the July 1 start of free agency whether Patrice Bergeron and/or David Krejci will be in the picture, and he’ll have to offload some salary just to fill out his roster, never mind making enough room to sign a UFA like Tyler Bertuzzi, which it’s believed he’d like to do in a perfect world. There are plenty of executives and player agents alike who have their fingers crossed that salary cap bump will be bigger than expected, but Sweeney will still have to make some moves.

He did make one non-move last week, opting not to sign his 2019 sixth-round pick, Finnish forward Matias Mantykivi, thus giving up the team’s exclusive signing rights. With Ilves Tampere, Manykivi had 12-21-33 totals in 60 games last season.

He wagered $50 on the Celtics to win the NBA Finals and $50 on the Bruins to win the Stanley Cup.

Turns out, the house always wins. Even when the speaker doesn’t.

The NBA Finals begin tonight … in Denver.

The Stanley Cup Finals begin Saturday … in Las Vegas.

That was not supposed to happen.

TD Garden was double-booked.

NBA Finals on Thursday.

Stanley Cup Finals on Saturday.

NBA Finals on Sunday.

Stanley Cup Finals on Monday.

The Score of Supremacy enters its second act.

Boston reclaims its throne as the Sports Hub of the Universe.

The Brady Effect, finally, purged from our ethos.

Cue the … “Price Is Right” horn.

Boston’s road was wide open. But the bridge got washed out.

Two gut-wrenching Game 7 choke jobs later, we’re stuck with 101 days of the Red Sox.

The Patriots open at home against the Eagles on Sept. 10 with 17 weeks of three-and-out.

Boston’s title drought will celebrate its fifth birthday on Feb. 3 if the Red Sox do not win the World Series.

Big “if” there.

Today is Day 1,579.

The possibility of a double Duck Boat parade in the early-summer sun warmed the Bay State all winter. The victorious Celtics and triumphant Bruins rolling down Boylston Street in joint mayhem. The glare of the Larry O’Brien Trophy and Stanley Cup shining upon a few million blind drunks.

It was all a dream.

Blades went into hibernation a month ago.

The “Greatest NHL Team Ever” blew a 3-1 series lead against the No. 8-seed Panthers in Round 1. The mighty Boston Bruins got iced by a goalie born in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. And cowed by the swagger and skill of Matthew Tkachuk.

The Curse of the Presidents’ Trophy remains more lethal than John Wick. Of the last 20 winners, only two have won the Stanley Cup. That’s a kill rate of 90%. Dogs included.

The Celtics fooled themselves and everyone else, except the Miami Heat. Boston ran out of second chances against Miami, after being pushed to Game 6 against Atlanta and Game 7 against Philly.

It’s unfair to call these Celtics “frauds.” They never pretended to be anything but a talent-heavy team lacking the “grit” necessary to win a ring.

By now, your head is spinning with trade talk, new-coach talk, and variations of the roster that somehow will be the difference next year.

The Celtics need a heart and soul transplant. Plus, an adult in the room with an NBA championship ring.

Meanwhile, Jaylen Brown just dribbled the ball off his foot. And Jayson Tatum is complaining to the refs.

Winning has been purged from the Celtics organization’s DNA.

One title in 37 years does that.

They are now the NBA’s version of “Glass Joe.” Can’t take a punch.

Lucky’s black eye may last for years.

The last bit of “Celtics Pride” perished Monday night.

With Pat Riley watching, the Miami Heat received the Bob Cousy Trophy and Jimmy Butler hoisted the Larry Bird Trophy. All this occurred on a TD Garden parquet floor that features the number “6” in honor of Bill Russell and the signature of Red Auerbach.

It was unholy. Before the Celtics think about raising Banner 18, they need to chop up the wood, throw it into a shredder, and burn the remains. A Greek Orthodox priest can perform an exorcism to purify it all.

Monday’s besmirchment came nearly a year after the Golden State Warriors celebrated an NBA championship on the same cursed timber. Steph Curry was given a trophy named for Russell as series MVP.

When you hear talk about “blowing up” the Celtics or Bruins, you might want to include TD Garden.

In addition to Game 7, the Celtics dropped two at home to open their series against the Heat before their failed impersonation of the 2004 Red Sox. They are 11-12 in their past 23 home playoff games.

The Bruins lost three home games, including Game 7, to the Panthers. The Bruins have lost seven Game 7s in their current building and watched two teams (Chicago and St. Louis) claim the Stanley Cup on that tainted ice.

How about a Little Wrecking Ball of Hate?

Boston can now boast that it is the only city ever to lose Game 7s to NBA and NHL No. 8 seeds at home in the same season.

The NBA Finals swing back to South Beach next week. That’s familiar turf given the Heat’s success of the past 20 years.

The Stanley Cup is either going to be won just off the Las Vegas Strip or behind a sprawling mall in Sunrise, Fla. Hardly Original Six territory.

The biggest question for both the Celtics and Bruins is: “Now what?”

In terms of leadership, roster make-up, and the franchises themselves.

How do you sell the Celtics next season? Will “Unfinished Business” become “Risky Business?”

How about: “No Guts. No Glory.”

Or: “5 Guys … Disappear.”

The Bruins will bamboozle the masses with endless chatter about it being their 100th season.

When you’ve won just one Stanley Cup in 51 years, ancient history is all you’ve got.

Those under 45 have no real memory of the dynastic Celtics of the 1980s. Add another decade for the Big Bad Bruins of the 1970s.

The lasting impact from this season for both the Bruins and the Celtics will be an impossibility for their fan bases to ever take the regular season seriously again.

Even if both go 82-0.

Bill Speros (@RealOBF and @BillSperos) can be reached at bsperos1@gmail.com

On one side, we have the coach, Bruce Cassidy, that the Bruins kicked to the curb just a year ago. On the other, we have the team that turned the B’s dream season into a nightmare.

If you can bear to watch, it should be a very interesting series. On the Vegas Golden Knights side, there is more than one local angle. Chelmsford-born Jack Eichel, whose career was nearly botched in Buffalo, is celebrating his first foray into the playoffs with a trip to the Finals. That’s right.

The player who once had his future GM with the Sabres, Tim Murray, visibly show his disappointment on the televised draft lottery show because he had to settle for the former Boston University star has made it to the last round before the player that Murray desired, Connor McDavid.

And part of the reason that Eichel’s now on the sport’s biggest stage is because of Cassidy, who had challenged the offensively gifted centerman to dedicate himself to better two-way play. While he’s maintained slightly better than a point-per-game pace in playoffs (6-12-18 in 17 games), some of his more eye-opening plays have been in his own zone during this run.

Cassidy also managed to keep Vegas afloat while terrific two-way right wing and the Knights’ inspirational engine, Mark Stone, was limited to just 43 games because of a recurring back injury. Cassidy has also endured goalie after goalie coming in and going out through the revolving door, five in all. Just when he thought Laurent Brossoit was the Knights’ man for the playoffs, he got hurt in the second round and Cassidy had to turn to Adin Hill, who is riding a .937 playoff save percentage into the finals.

Cassidy’s success in Vegas will no doubt lead to a re-litigation of the B’s decision to fire him. We’ll say it again. Cassidy is a very good coach whose willingness – in fact, his eagerness – to talk about any aspect of the game, and not sugarcoat inconvenient truths, was a breath of fresh air and made him a favorite among the reporters who covered the team. People like Cassidy are good for the sport.

But every coach has a shelf life. In hindsight for many of us who were sad to see him go, Cassidy’s demanding approach was not getting the most out of some mid-level and still-developing players. While Jim Montgomery may rue some of his decisions in the playoffs, he was the right man at the right time for this Bruin team in a lot of ways. Cassidy has been the same for the Knights.

The Panthers, meanwhile, have taken the hard road to the Finals. After barely squeaking in, needing the lowly Chicago Blackhawks to beat the Pittsburgh Penguins down the stretch, the Panthers of course overcame a 3-1 series hole and a late one-goal deficit in Game 7 to stun the B’s, who won a record-setting 65 games in the regular season. After beating the best team in the league, the Panthers then beat the fourth best team (Toronto) in five games before sweeping the second best (Carolina).

There has been some debate over who the leader in the clubhouse among Panthers for the Conn Smythe Trophy, whether it’s goalie Sergei Bobrovsky or forward Matthew Tkachuk. Between the two, we’d take Tkachuk and his four game-winners. As good as Bobrovsky’s been in the last two rounds, in the Panthers’ toughest test, the B’s, he was subpar (.891 save percentage, 3.94 GAA).

But if you could give the Conn Smythe to a characteristic and not a player, it would go to the Panthers’ resilience. They persevered through a rough transition in the regular season following the Tkachuk trade that saw the departure of Panther mainstays Jonathan Huberdeau and Mackenzie Weegar and then got up off the mat against the B’s.

But even more than that, any time an opponent had scored a big goal against them that could have thrown a team off its rails, the Panthers would always respond with a dagger of their own. The best example of that was Tkachuk’s most recent game-winner that came with four seconds left in regulation to complete the sweep of the Hurricanes, just shortly after the Canes had tied it up with their goalie pulled.

That trait is an extension, at least in part, of head coach Paul Maurice. He’s been a head coach in this league since the Whalers were in Hartford. He’s had just one trip to the Finals, when his Hurricanes team was steamrolled by one of the all-time great Red Wings team.

The pick here? With the benefit of some playoff videotape on the Panthers, Cassidy’s Golden Knights’ defense corps will not fall prey to the Panthers’ forecheck as badly as the B’s, Leafs and Canes did. But it won’t be easy. Vegas in 7.

Regardless of the outcome, it should be easy to find a rooting interest in this series – as long as you take off your Black and Gold-colored glasses.

In the end, the Celts were a team that was far too reliant on the three-point shot to be championship caliber. They got away with a clang-fest (7-for-35 in threes) in their dramatic Game 6 win in Miami that was pulled out of the fire by a great Derrick White moment. But that’s all it was – a moment that just staved off elimination in Game 6 by a Miami Heat team that few people gave a chance against the more talented Celtics.

In Monday’s massacre, however, the Celts got what they usually deserve when they shoot badly from three-point land. On the strength of 9-for-42 shooting on threes, the Celts fell to the Heat with a whimper, losing 103-84 in the mother of all buzzkills. The final score was charitable.

Asked if his team relied too much on the three, coach Joe Mazzulla remained defiant to the end.

“No,” said the coach flatly.

There might be a few folks who’d debate the coach on that point this morning.

In an attempt to make history in Game 7 at the Garden, the Celtics’ implosion would have made the Roy siblings proud. All 150 teams that had gone down 0-3 in a best-of-seven series in NBA history had failed to come back and win the series. Now you can make it 151, thanks to a no-show night of shooting by the Celts that produced an end to their season, coming up short once again for their quest for Banner 18.

This time, the Celtics could not blame the Garden fans or the atmosphere. At 8:01 p.m., a half hour before tip-off, the crowd started its first, boisterous “Let’s-Go-Celtics” chant. The hype video that spliced the Red Sox’ 2004 comeback against the New York Yankees with the Celts’ big moments in this series got the crowd even more revved up. Kevin Millar did his thing on the Jumbotron. The fans were ready to blow the roof off the Garden.

None of it mattered.

Jayson Tatum hurt his ankle on the first possession of the game (“I was just a shell of myself after that,” said Tatum) and with one of the top-10 NBA players hampered, the Celts’ other top-10 player was awful. Jaylen Brown, who famously challenged the fans in the last series against Philadelphia, committed eight turnovers in an absolutely brutal performance. He was 1-for-9 from behind the stripe and, at the start of the fourth quarter, he had more turnovers than the entire Heat team.

Brown at least owned up to the magnitude of the fur-ball he coughed up.

“Just a terrible game when my team needed me most,” said Brown, who scored a team-high 19 points but was minus-17. “My team turned to me to make plays and I came up short. I failed.”

Give full marks to Jimmy Butler (28 points), Caleb Martin (26 points) and the Heat. It was a daunting atmosphere in which to spit out what would have been a bitter pill to swallow. They stared it all down with some legendary gumption. The Heat did not just win Game 7 on the parquet, they took three out of the four games on Causeway Street, just as their South Florida ice brethren the Panthers did to the Bruins earlier this spring.

But given all that, the Heat were there for the taking. They opened the game not much better than their generous hosts. They started out shooting 2-for-11 from the floor. But Miami snapped out of it. The Celtics never did.

“I thought we were tight. I thought we played tight,” said Malcolm Brogdon, who tried and failed to play through a damaged tendon in his forearm. “We played that way at both ends of the ball. I thought Miami played the opposite. I thought they played loose. I thought they executed on the defensive end and offensively I thought they were poised. They weren’t rushed, they weren’t nervous. And I thought Jimmy did what he was supposed to do.”

No one on the Celtics did, however. They chunked it in the first half, and they never recovered. They missed their first 11 trey attempts and were 4-from-21 behind the stripe. When they were clanging it from downtown, they giving the Heat the ball. They committed seven first-half turnovers, three by Brown.

Meanwhile, Tatum (14 points) was making as little impact as possible for a superstar in this league. On the game’s first possession, he was slow to get up after rolling his left ankle after being fouled by Gabe Vincent. Tatum, who kept the Celts’ season alive with 51 points in their Game 7 win over the Philadelphia 76ers, had just seven points in the first half and missed his only three attempt.

The Celtics failed to gain any momentum coming out of the half and it was a fait accompli midway through the third quarter.

Now they’re left again to figure out what this team is missing. It is clear that something is.

Almost.

As we wade into the too-long summer months for the B’s, there’s one idea that we find intriguing. Mind you, we’re just spit-balling here. But it would be interesting if the Seattle Kraken would entertain shipping their 2022 first-round draft pick, Shane Wright, out east for one of the two Bruin goalies. The guess here is the one that the Kraken would even consider trading Wright for would be the 24-year-old Swayman as opposed to Ullmark, who’ll turn 30 on July 31.

It could be a franchise-changing deal with a strong possibility of being a win-win move.

The Kraken signed Philipp Grubauer to a six-year deal with a $5.9 million cap hit before its inaugural season two summers ago. He had a nice little run in the Kraken’s playoff debut, but he’s been just OK otherwise. In 39 games this season, the now-31-year-old had a .895 save percentage and 2.85 GAA. The Kraken’s other goalie, Martin Jones, is an unrestricted free agent. It could be a perfect spot for Swayman, who could share the net with the older veteran with an eye toward taking over the No. 1 gig, similar to the process he’s in the midst of here.

Meanwhile, Wright could very well be the that No. 1 center that the B’s have been trying to develop. Long considered the top pick in last year’s draft, Wright surprisingly fell to the fourth slot, where the Kraken scooped him up.

Though the Kraken still seem to be high on him, Wright had something of a lost development year, bouncing from Seattle, the World Junior championships, Coachella Valley (AHL) and finally back to juniors and the Windsor Spitfires. He played a grand total of 36 league games.

While no slam dunk to excel at the NHL, Wright’s game does have the same two-way DNA upon which the B’s identity has been built with Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci. Wright’s entry-level contract would also help the B’s navigate the salary cap the next couple of years.

And wouldn’t Wright be just the young man to help revive the currently dormant Bruins-Canadiens rivalry? When the Habs stunned a lot of people – Wright included – by taking Juraj Slafkovsky with the No. 1 pick, Wright gave the Habs’ table a good, long stare-down from the stage after he was eventually picked by the Kraken.

Yes, Wright would be someone we’d consider moving Swayman for. It would be more of a gamble on B’s GM Don Sweeney’s side, simply because Swayman has more of an NHL resume. And the feeling here is that we haven’t seen the best he has to offer. But given the B’s cap situation and the paucity of draft picks the next couple of years, Sweeney may have to roll those dice.

Rod’s odd take

Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour has been widely mocked for his post-game comments, seemingly denying the obvious, that his team got swept by destiny’s darlings, the Florida Panthers.

“We didn’t lose four games,” Brind’Amour told reporters in Sunrise. “We got beat but we were right there and this could have gone the other way. It could have been four games the other way.”

It could have, but it wasn’t. And that’s because the Panthers, as they’ve done for a month and half now, got the big goal when they needed it and their opponent did not.

Yet after four one-goal losses, Brind’Amour’s frustration was understandable. Though a well-known ref-baiter, Brind’Amour had every reason to be infuriated after the initials missed a clear high-sticking penalty late in Game 3, which would have given the Canes an opportunity for a 6-on-4 with the goalie pulled and about a minute left on the clock.

But in the end, his real anger should have been directed toward his own management and ownership. Before the trade deadline, the Canes lost the sniper they thought was going to get them over the hump, Max Pacioretty, to a torn Achilles tendon.

Instead of using Pacioretty’s $7 million in cap space to get a forward who’d proven he could fill the net, the Canes settled for Jesse Puljujarvi, who had no goals and one assist in seven playoff games. He was in street clothes for the entire Florida series. The loss of Pacioretty was compounded when, after the trade deadline, the Canes lost their best offensive weapon, Andrei Svechnikov, to a season-ending injury. In the end, the Canes just didn’t have enough firepower. They better get some or this promising run they’re on will be over before they know it.

Captain crunched

Captains do not have to speak to the media after every game, but they do when their teams reach certain pressure points in a campaign. Dallas Stars’ captain Jamie Benn flunked that Leadership 101 exam last week.

Not only did his team lose Game 3 against the Vegas Golden Knights to fall into a 3-0 hole, Benn was chiefly responsible for the loss when, just 1:53 into the game, he looked down at a prone Mark Stone and decided it was a good time to ram his stick into the side of Stone’s neck. He was rightly given a five-minute major and game misconduct. He then took a pass on explaining himself to the Stars’ fan-base via reporters after the game.

But when he did speak the next day, Benn only made matters worse when, asked what he’d do differently, he said he “obviously would have liked to not fall on him and, I guess, not use my stick as a landing point.”

Whether or not that argument was used with the Department of Player Safety, the league rightly – if surprisingly, considering the damage Benn had already done to his team – came down with a two-game suspension.

As for speaking/not speaking with the media, not every player is comfortable with that process and that’s fine. Benn has always appeared to fall into this category. But organizations must consider that when they decide to put a “C” on a player’s chest. It’s a part of the job.

Dubious about Dubas

That deposed Maple Leafs’ GM Kyle Dubas left a lot of loyalists behind in the front office speaks highly of him. And we have little doubt that given a second chance at a GM job – he’s reportedly interviewed for the open Penguins’ role (B’s assistant GM and capologist Evan Gold has also reportedly interviewed as well) – he could succeed where he did not in Toronto.

But you do have to question how he constructed those Leaf teams. He had nearly half his salary cap tied up in three forwards – Auston Matthews ($11.6 million), John Tavares ($11 million) and Mitch Marner ($10.9 million – and one defenseman – Morgan Reilly ($7.5 million). Forever in need of a goaltending upgrade, he made the dubious decision of picking up most of the oft-injured Matt Murray’s ($4.687 million) contract and obtained unproven Ilya Samsonov. By the time they were knocked out of the playoffs by Florida, both were spectators while 24-year-old Joseph Woll, a veteran of 11 NHL games, was between the pipes.

“Just win or die,” said the first-year coach.

Well, the Celts are a long way from living the life they should be, but they are not dead yet.

Maybe it’s the fact that the pressure is momentarily off them. Perhaps it’s a matter of pride kicking after being rag-dolled by their notoriously forgiving fan base after their pathetic no-show performance in Game 3 down in Miami that put them in an 0-3 hole. Or maybe they’ve finally come to the realization that they are the better team.

But it’s a series now, and suddenly the Celtics have that 2004 Red Sox vibe. There is belief now that the Celts can make history like their baseball brethren and become the first team in NBA history to climb out of the 3-0 series deficit, getting it back to 3-2 with a 110-97 victory at the Garden.

That the C’s, like the Sox, would be the first team in their respective leagues to turn the trick is about all these two runs have in common. As admirable as the Heat are, they are not the New York Yankees, the gold standard of American sports, one that had a particular psychic hold over your team for nearly a century.

But it still would be fun if the Celts pulled this off, wouldn’t it?

The Celtics produced their best, most balanced effort that would not have been in doubt after the first quarter, except for the fact that this is the Celtics we’re talking about. They had four players surpass the 20-point mark – Derrick White (24), Marcus Smart (23), Jayson Tatum (21) and Jaylen Brown (21). Tatum exploded out of the gates with 12 first-quarter points but when his shots stopped falling, he facilitated, dishing out 11 assists. Al Horford yanked down a team-high 11 rebounds and Smart led the C’s at plus-20.

Meanwhile, nemesis Jimmy Butler was held to just 14 points and he was a minus-24 before Heat coach Erik Spoelstra waved the white flag for this night early in the fourth quarter, letting Butler sit for the rest of the night.

After they stayed alive with the Game 4 win in Miami and then dominated Game 5 on Thursday, it’s almost is if the Celts realized they should not be losing to this team.

“It just says that our backs are against the wall and we’re sticking together and we’re competing at a high level to give ourselves a chance,” said Mazzulla after the game.

While tickets for this game were not nearly as hot as Taylor Swift ducats, the crowd was charged from the opening tap – and the Celts responded in kind. First it was Tatum and Smart throwing haymakers, then it was White and Brown. The Celts opened up a 15-5 lead on a Smart three-pointer and the advantage never sunk below double digits.

For a brief moment, it appeared Tatum was letting the emotion of the big game get to him. It’s not that he disappeared, as he had done in the fourth quarters of Games 1 and 2, but rather he was too hyped up. Early in the game, he emphatically dunked the ball and then hung on the rim way too long, earning himself a technical.

But that was just a blip. Smart hit two corner threes, the second of which forced Spoelstra to call his first timeout. Unlike earlier in the series, it didn’t stop the bleeding. Out of the stoppage, Tatum hit another three and White hit a short jumper. Eventually, another one-hand, monster dunk from Tatum and Spoelstra called another T.

The first quarter ended with White’s third three of the frame at the buzzer to give the C’s a 15-point bulge.

Even though Tatum went cold in the second quarter, the Heat showed just minimal push-back, getting it down to 11. But the Celts took a 17-point lead into the half. They even survived another Grant Williams bear-poking incident when, after he blocked Kyle Lowry’s shot, he demonstrably stepped over the prone Lowry out of bounds.

The third quarter had been the C’s bugaboo earlier in the series, but they maintained their lead and when the fourth came around, the Heat had nothing left to give.

Now it’s back to Miami for Game 6 on Saturday. If C’s owner Wyc Grousbeck had a sense of humor and history, he’d offer to buy South Florida residents Derek Jeter and ARod courtside seats for the game.

Brown, for one, is squeezing everything he can out of this Sox mojo.

“They let us get two,” Brown told the TNT crew. “So don’t let us get another one.”

The Bruins GM was named one of the three finalists for NHL GM of the Year along with the Florida Panthers’ Bill Zito and Dallas Stars’ Jim Nill, as voted on by the league’s general managers. Sweeney won the award after the 2018-19 season, when the B’s finished one win short of the Cup.

Though the B’s were stunned in the first round by Zito’s Panthers, the club set team and league records for wins (65) and points (135).

Sweeney’s work actually began two summers ago, when he dipped into the free agent market to sign this season’s Vezina Award favorite Linus Ullmark, solid bottom six regulars Nick Foligno and Tomas Nosek, as well as short-timer Erik Haula, whom Sweeney flipped last summer for Pavel Zacha. The versatile, 26-year-old Zacha posted 21-36-57 totals and is expected to be a top-six center of the future.

After the B’s were bounced out of the playoffs in the first round by the Carolina Hurricanes, Sweeney fired coach Bruce Cassidy and hired Jim Montgomery. With Cassidy’s new team, the Vegas Golden Knights, one win away from the Stanley Cup Finals and Montgomery coming up well short, it’s a move that is wide open for debate now. But for much of the record-breaking season, Montgomery appeared to be the right man for the job at the right time.

With his team in a salary-cap crunch, Sweeney signed veterans Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci to team-friendly deals and squeezed in Zacha, obtained as an RFA, on a one-year, $3.5 million deal for 2022-23 before nailing him down on a four-year deal with an AAV of $4.75 million.

Sweeney bolstered his team at the trade deadline, obtaining Dmity Orlov and Garnet Hathaway at the deadline from Washington. Then, when hit with unexpected injuries to Taylor Hall and Foligno (both of whom had murky prognoses), the GM did some some fancy footwork and picked up Tyler Bertuzzi from the Red Wings. While Bertuzzi had some issues at 5-on-5, he did tie Brad Marchand for the team lead in points with 5-5-10 totals in the playoff series.

On the same day he swung the Bertuzzi deal, Sweeney locked up 61-goal scorer and Hart Trophy finalist David Pastrnak to the richest deal in Bruins’ history, an eight-year, $90 million pact.

That’s a lot of good work. But a GM cannot make a clean breakout pass, which the B’s defensemen failed to do on a regular basis in the playoff loss to the Panthers, who were looking to sweep the Hurricanes on Wednesday night to punch their ticket to the Cup finals.

Now Sweeney has quite a job ahead of him. He’s got just seven forwards and one goalie signed with approximately $5 million in cap space. The B’s are also without first- and second-round draft picks this year and first, second and third-round picks next year.

That’s the price of going for it, which is what Sweeney and the B’s did with eyes wide open. The team did not get the job done on the ice, but it’s hard to argue that Sweeney didn’t do his job, and do it very well.

But how much player empowerment is too much? The Bruins’ leadership group was as solid as you’ll ever find. But the aftermath of their stunning early flame-out makes one wonder if a little more tough love from above at the right moments would have meant they’d still be playing right now.

For the B’s, the player-driven ethos worked as well as it could possibly work. Until it didn’t. During the regular season, the B’s won a record 65 games and looked unbeatable. But there is no such thing, especially in he NHL. The B’s gagged up a 3-1 series lead to the Florida Panthers and lost in the first round.

When it was all over, we learned that Patrice Bergeron came back into the lineup in Game 5 with a herniated disc in his back. We know goalie Linus Ullmark was playing with some sort of lower body injury, the exact nature of which is still unknown. And just last week we discovered that defenseman Hampus Lindholm was playing with a broken foot.

In the B’s brass’ season-ending presser, coach Jim Montgomery said in no uncertain terms that Bergeron talked his way into the lineup for Game 5 and Ullmark did the same for Game 6. Considering Lindholm was seen in a walking boot after taking a puck off his foot in the March 11 game against the Red Wings, it’s certainly conceivable that he too convinced his bosses he could keep playing when he could have used some more down time.

There’s a whole mess of gray area in all of this. Hockey players play hurt all the time. In the playoffs, they even play injured. They play through some level of pain and they do it because they want to and it is expected of them. And they are celebrated for it.

But would it have been right for Montgomery and/or his higher-ups GM Don Sweeney and team president Cam Neely to keep any of them off the ice? Let’s take them one by one.

In the case of Ullmark, the answer is clearly yes, and Montgomery admitted as such. Regardless of any pain through which he was playing, he wasn’t the airtight stopper he was in the regular season. The coach conceded that he should have gone to Jeremy Swayman sooner than Game 7. To these eyes, Game 6 would have been the most logical start for Swayman. The kid would have been perfectly capable of pulling out the W. If not, you could have gone back with a rested Ullmark for Game 7.

Continuing to play Lindholm in the regular season is highly debatable. Even if tests didn’t reveal a fracture until after the season, as Lindholm told a Swedish media outlet, the fact that he was wearing a boot after taking the puck off the foot suggests there was more caution being exercised than there would be for a run-of-the-mill bruise. But after taking off the second half of the back-to-back on March 12, he was right back in the lineup, taking only one more game off on March 26, another second of a back-to-back.

In hindsight, it’s easy to say they should have bubble-wrapped Lindholm for a couple of weeks at least. On the other hand, when he was re-inserted into the lineup on March 14 in Chicago, he continued to produce, notching 2-4-6 totals in his next five games and looking like his regular self.

Could the foot have contributed to Lindholm’s 0-0-0 performance in the playoffs? Sure. But it’s just as possible that the gifted defenseman just didn’t elevate his game in the post-season like he needed to.

As for Bergeron’s return to action after suffering the back injury in the final regular season game, it’s hard to fault Montgomery or the brass for acquiescing to the captain’s desire to get back in the lineup. The B’s may have been able to grind out a series win over Florida without Bergeron, but they weren’t winning a Stanley Cup without him, and this season was all about the Cup. If Bergeron said he’s ready to go and he’s medically cleared, it is more than understandable that he’d be re-inserted in the lineup.

In his illustrious career, Bergeron has famously played though numerous injuries during the playoffs. He’s also missed some playoff games. If anyone knows the difference between being injured and being hurt — and be honest about it — it would be Bergeron. The notion that after 19 years of exemplary citizenship in the league and growing into one of the best leaders this franchise has ever seen he forced his way into the lineup for selfish reasons is ludicrous. Drop that hot take elsewhere.

Still, you can’t help wonder if a little more control was exerted from above the player level in any of those situations and different decisions were made, would they have finished off the ever resilient Panthers?

That’s a tougher second-guess than some vexed fans want to admit. But it’s just another painful yet understandable what-if to ponder in this much-too-long offseason.

In a communication with the Swedish publication Aftonbladet last week in explaining why he could not represent Sweden in the World Championships, Lindholm revealed that he’d just found out that he’d been playing with a fractured foot “for the past month,” he wrote in a text.

Lindholm blocked a shot in the Bruins’ March 11 win over the Red Wings and did not play in the second half of the weekend back-to-back the next day. He was also given the March 26 game in Carolina off to take care of a nagging injury, coach Jim Montgomery said at the time.

Those were the only two games he missed all season. Whether the fracture occurred in that March 11 game or there was subsequent trauma that caused the break is not clear.

In the first year of an eight-year, $52 million deal, the big Swede enjoyed a breakout season in which he set a career high in points (10-43-53) and lifted the team when it was without Charlie McAvoy to start the season.

But Lindholm was a no-show in the playoffs. While all the Bruins’ defensemen had trouble breaking through the Florida Panthers’ forecheck, Lindholm’s 0-0-0 stat line stood out. There was a tentativeness to his game. How much you can attribute that to the injury and how much to the Panthers is anyone’s guess.

In his final meeting with reporters two days after the record-setting B’s were ousted by the Panthers, Lindholm would not use the foot as an excuse.

“I’d say I was fine,” said Lindholm on May 2. “Everyone has bumps and bruises that time of year. There’s no excuses on that stuff … it’s just that time of year. You try to find ways. We couldn’t really do that this year.”

And just because the remaining four teams – Dallas Stars, Vegas Golden Knights, Carolina Hurricanes and Florida Panthers – don’t come from “traditional” hockey cities doesn’t mean they don’t matter. The Stars, Knights and Canes have all developed passionate fan bases. The Panthers? Well, they’re still trying to figure out how to keep opposing fans from buying all the tickets at Florida Live Arena. But three out of four isn’t bad.

As we await the kickoff of conference finals on Thursday when the Panthers and Canes get it going, here are few observations and quick hits from the first month of the post-season:

Full Monty: There is not a member of the Bruins’ press corps who is not happy for Bruce Cassidy’s success in Vegas. He was as forthright as any coach in any sport I’ve covered. But I had come to accept that the time was right for a change, and I still believe that to be true. Under Cassidy, vital progress for some young players had stalled and, under Jim Montgomery, career progress was restored.

Trent Frederic didn’t have a great playoff series (he’s not alone), but he found his identity as a player, notching 17 goals and becoming a useful top-nine forward. Perhaps even more importantly, Brandon Carlo got his career back on track after it had seemingly been sliding the wrong way.

Like every coach, Montgomery wants to win, and he too can lose patience with players he deems to be in the way of that endeavor. Jack Studnicka played a grand total of one game under Montgomery before being shipped out to Vancouver. Jakub Zboril, a defenseman the B’s will most likely need to play a regular role in 2023-24, was effectively banished after coughing up a puck in Florida on Nov. 23.

But for the most part, Montgomery got performances out of young players – you can throw in newcomer Pavel Zacha in the top six and Jakub Lauko at the bottom of the lineup, too – that should put the B’s in better shape to handle the post-Patrice Bergeron era a little better.

No big deal: It may be a long time before we see the kind of arms race we saw at the trade deadline. All of the perceived “winners” of the deadline are done. The Bruins, Rangers, Maple Leafs and Oilers all made significant, headline-grabbing additions while most of the four remaining teams made less ambitious moves that are paying off.

The Hurricanes lost big guns Andrei Svechnikov and Max Pacioretty during the season and added just Shayne Gostisbehere and Jesse Puljujarvi. The Stars added Evgenii Dadonov and Max Domi and they’ve been significant contributors in the post-season, though few thought those players would push the Stars over the top at the time of the deadline. The Golden Knights picked up middle-six forward Ivan Barbashev and he’s been what the Knights expected (and Bruins fans know too well). Lastly, the giant-slaying Panthers, four points out of a playoff spot at the deadline, did bupkis. And right now, bupkis is working for them.

Depth key: While goaltending has long been considered the most important element for a playoff run, it’s clear that depth is every bit as, if not more, important. The Edmonton Oilers have two generational talents in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl but they weren’t enough to beat the Knights. While McDavid had 20 points in 12 games and Draisaitl had 13 goals in 12 games, they didn’t get much pop elsewhere. Evander Kane provided little more than his tough guy act of punching Keegan Kolesar when he was down, pitching in just 2-3-5 at minus-3 in 12 playoff games and Kailer Yamamoto, for all his energy and speed, had just 1-3-4 and minus-7 in 12 games. And by the end of the series, the Knights simply out-battled Edmonton.

Matthews on block?: If any one player was believed to be the missing link for the Maple Leafs, it was Ryan O’Reilly. But emblematic of the Leafs’ cursed existence was the overtime goal that ended their season. As Radko Gudas opened up a shooting lane for Nick Cousins by holding Calle Jarnkrok’s stick, the last Leaf back in the D-zone was none other the 2019 Selke, Conn Smythe and Stanley Cup winner O’Reilly. Ouch.

Now the Leafs almost have to make some kind of change to their Core Four, and the guess here is that the one to go will be the best one – Auston Matthews, who has one year left on his deal.

Bedard will be a Blackhawk: Speaking of generational talents, does anyone really think the Chicago Blackhawks are going to pass on drafting Connor Bedard? After taking the heat all season long for their obvious tanking so they can draft The Next Next One, then beating the odds by winning the lottery? Really? I don’t care what package Bruins’ fans, or any other fan base, can conjure up. The Hawks aren’t moving that pick. They will take Bedard. But then comes the much harder work of building a championship team around him. If the Hawks, who have another first-rounder (19th) and four second-round picks, could land Matthews, that would accelerate the process.

Bobrovsky stole nothing: Florida goalie Sergei Bobrovsky was excellent against the Maple Leafs, but let’s not buy into the developing revisionist history that he stole the series against the Bruins. In five first-round games, he posted a 3.94 goals against average and .891 save percentage. The B’s lost the series primarily because they couldn’t get out of the zone or keep the puck out of their own net, not because Bobrovsky stoned them. You can give him credit for two big saves. There was his stop of Brad Marchand’s breakaway at the end of regulation of Game 5 on which Marchand’s options were limited because of the clock. The more underrated stop was the one on David Pastrnak’s breakaway in the wild Game 6 shortly after the B’s had taken a 4-3 lead in the third period. But Bobrovsky wasn’t all that against the B’s.

Tread lightly: The Panthers’ Paul Maurice is in his fifth NHL coaching stop (two with tours with the Carolina organization dating back to Hartford), the Stars’ Pete DeBoer is with his fifth NHL team and Cassidy is on his third. Sometimes, coaches become “retreads” for a good reason.

Carolina the pick: *Our re-adjusted Cup pick? The Canes. No bumps in the road – and they’ve encountered a few – have knocked them off course yet.

The B’s also announced their rookie camp will run through September 13-18, when they will take part in the annual rookie tournament at the HarborCenter in Buffalo.

The main training camp will open on September 20 at Warrior Ice Arena.

The other Hart finalists are Edmonton’s Connor McDavid and Florida’s Matthew Tkachuk.

Despite becoming the first Bruin to reach the 60-goal plateau since Phil Esposito last did it in 1974-75 and reaching the 100-point mark for the first time in his career (61-52-113 totals), Pastrnak is not the favorite for the award. McDavid, with his 64-89-153 totals, is the clear front-runner and some observers have speculated the Oiler could be the unanimous winner.

As expected with their 65-win season, the Bruins will be well represented at the NHL Awards Show in Nashville on June 26. Patrice Bergeron (Selke), Jim Montgomery (Jack Adams) and Linus Ullmark (Vezina) are also up for awards.

Ullmark was named one of the three finalists for the Vezina Award given to the NHL’s top goalie on Thursday as voted on by the league’s general managers. The other two finalists are Ilya Sorokin of the New York Islanders and Winnipeg’s Connor Hellebuyck, the 2020 winner and former UMass Lowell star.

While some observers tried to make the case for other goalies in the last few weeks of the season, Ullmark should be considered the clear front-runner. He won what it is known as the goalie triple crown, leading the league in save percentage (.938), goals against average (1.89), and was tied with the Colorado Avalanche’s Alexander Georgiev in wins (40) while playing 13 fewer games than the Avs’ netminder. Ullmark posted a dominant 40-6-1 record.

That level of excellence proved to unsustainable once the playoffs started, however. While he was battling some kind of lower body injury, he was deemed healthy enough to play but he was not close to the same player he was in the regular season. He was 3-3 with .896 save percentage and 3.33 GAA before giving up the net in Game 7 to Jeremy Swayman.

Ullmark became the fourth Bruin to be a finalist for a major regular season award.

Patrice Bergeron is up for his sixth Selke Award (he’s also the B’s nominee for the King Clancy Award), Jim Montgomery is a finalist for the Jack Adams Award given to the league’s top coach and David Pastrnak is a finalist for the Ted Lindsay Award given to the league’s most outstanding player as voted on by the players. The finalists for the Hart Trophy, given to the league’s MVP as voted on by the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association, will be announced on Friday evening.

Pastrnak became the first Bruin to hit the 60-goal mark since Phil Esposito did it in 1974-75. With 61-52-113 totals, Pastrnak also broke the 100-point plateau for the first time in his career.

The other finalists are San Jose Shark Erik Karlsson, who topped the 100-point mark as a defenseman, and Edmonton Oiler Connor McDavid, who has to be considered the favorite after posting 64-89-153 totals.

GM Don Sweeney did the right thing this year. He saw the opportunity for his record-setting team and he pushed in all his chips. It was the right approach, and very wrong results.

Now, the B’s are sitting without a draft pick in the first and second rounds this year, and without a pick in the first three rounds next year. They have only six NHL forwards under contract. They still have to sign goalie Jeremy Swayman. They’ve got less than $10 million in cap space.

Change is coming, as Sweeney promised, as anyone with access to capfriendly.com can tell. A lot of it is going to hurt. The good news is that most of the players that they do have under contract – including David Pastrnak, Brad Marchand, Pavel Zacha, Charlie Coyle, Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm – are all legitimate difference-makers on any given night. The Bruins can remain competitive, but making the right choices of who should stay and who should will be key.

And so, with the NHL’s horse-trading season fast approaching, here is an unsolicited list of do’s and don’ts for the B’s brass:

DON’T: Trade either of your goalies – unless it nets you your No. 1 center for the next 12-15 years. And I don’t see the Seattle Kraken moving Matty Beniers any time soon.

As we’ve seen throughout these playoffs, many teams are needing more than one goalie to get through the two-month slog of the post-season. The B’s did not use their two goalies Linus Ullmark and Swayman judiciously in their first-round series loss to the Florida Panthers but they will need two goalies in the future. Ullmark still has plenty to prove with his first two forays into the playoffs, which have yet to produce a series win. But so did Tim Thomas before he went on his Conn Smythe run in 2011. Swayman, an RFA who’ll command a sizable bump in pay from his entry level deal, should continue to improve off his sophomore season (24-6-4, .920, 2.27).

Let’s not forget how much stellar goaltending led to the B’s unprecedented regular season success. The subpar goaltending they got in the playoffs proved it.

DO: Give coach Jim Montgomery some slack on his leash. After the brain trust’s press conference on Tuesday, it felt like the coach would already be on the hot seat for the playoff failure come September. And Montgomery rightly stepped forward to take the lion’s share of blame for it. But while the 65-win season will now be relegated to the dark closet of regular season accomplishments along with the Patriots’ 16-0 regular season, what Montgomery achieved with a team many of us thought would battle to be a wild card should not be diminished. While he won’t have all the same players at his disposal, Montgomery has earned a do-over without undue pressure from above.

DON’T: Re-sign the players that were acquired at the deadline. Of the three players who were obtained – Dmitry Orlov, Tyler Bertuzzi and Garnet Hathaway – Orlov would be the most desirable to bring back. But he made it pretty clear that, given his age (31), he was looking for the most lucrative deal possible and, given the B’s cap space, it’s hard to see them competing. With McAvoy, Lindholm and Brandon Carlo tying up $21.1 million in cap space, signing Orlov would be a luxury they can’t afford. Bertuzzi is the best net-front power-play man the B’s have had in recent memory but his 5-on-5 play left something to be desired. His soft backhand passes into his own slot were damaging and a red flag. Still, at 28, Bertuzzi is in the sweet spot for earning power and the B’s are not in position to compete. Hathaway, meanwhile, did not provide the expected playoff oomph and Providence players like Oskar Steen and Marc McLaughlin are due for NHL fourth line duty.

DO: Clear cap space and attempt to grab back some draft capital. The first part is a necessity, the second part will be tricky. Moving Taylor Hall would clear $6 million for the next two years and might get you something in the first two rounds, but that would further deplete your already thin forward corps. It also must be determined if Jake DeBrusk (one year left at $4 million) is here for the long haul. He’s got one more year left at $4 million. If they believe he wants to test the UFA market in the summer of 2024, they must move him while his value is high. But as with Hall, moving DeBrusk would weaken you up front significantly. On the back end, they have three foundational pieces in McAvoy, Lindholm and Carlo and they must figure out how to survive while moving a few pieces below them on the depth chart. Matt Grzelcyk (one year left $3.678.5 million) could get a decent return, less so for Derek Forbort or the banished-to-Providence Mike Reilly (both with one year left at $3 million). Whoever is given a ticket to ride, the B’s will need to commit to a youth movement akin to the one in 2017-18 when they brought up McAvoy, DeBrusk, Grzelcyk and Sean Kuraly. A year later, they were in the Stanley Cup Finals. We’ll see if any of Mason Lohrei (the defenseman signed to his entry level deal on Wednesday), sharpshooter Georgii Merkulov, first-round picks Fabian Lysell and John Beecher, Steen and/or McLaughlin are ready for prime time.

DO: Light a candle and pray that Patrice Bergeron returns for another season. While David Krejci seemed like he was leaning toward retiring, Bergeron sounded truly undecided. For good reason. When healthy, he can still play at a high level. Bergeron very well could get his record sixth Selke Award this year. Not only could he still help the team, he’d buy the B’s one more year to find his replacement, whether that’s a prospect in the pipeline who still needs incubation time like Matthew Poitras or a player yet to be identified. Replacing Bergeron has proven to be a difficult task.

After his promising two-year career at Ohio State, the 22-year-old Lohrei had signed an amateur tryout contract with the Providence Bruins in the spring and played in five games, recording an assist and a minus-2 rating.

As a Buckeye, the 6-foot-4, 210-pound Lohrei had 4-25-29 totals in his freshman season and last season he had 4-28-32 in 40 games.

While he’s got just a teaspoonful of pro experience, Lohrei could be fast-tracked for the NHL depending on whose salary the B’s decide to move out in what will be necessary cap clearance in the comings weeks.

The B’s selected Lohrei with their second round pick (58th overall) in 2020.

But in speaking to reporters at the Legends club in the Garden for the first time since that fateful Sunday night, it was clear that the harshest and most unenviable spotlight was on coach Jim Montgomery. At one point, CEO Charlie Jacobs praised the job of his management team – president Cam Neely and GM Don Sweeney – for the job they did in putting together the 65-win team, but the kudos did not extend to the coach. Maybe that was an oversight, but it felt telling.

Whether or not that puts Montgomery on the hot seat as soon as training camp opens in September with a roster to be named later, the coach willingly dove into the white heat that was waiting for him.

First up was his decision to stick with goalie Linus Ullmark until Game 7. Sweeney – who made a point of saying the failure was a collective effort – said that whatever physical issue was bothering the netminder, the management and coaching staff received daily medical reports on Ullmark and they were comfortable with letting him play, from a physical standpoint.

But regardless if he was physically capable of playing, Ullmark clearly was not playing at the Vezina-caliber level that he’d played at during the regular season. Was there regret in not going with Jeremy Swayman before he did?

“In hindsight, absolutely,” said Montgomery. “There’s an added mental grind in the playoffs and it takes a toll. That’s what I learned through this grind. The expectations that were put on our team going into the playoffs, there’s a price you pay. Everyone does. And I think we are going to learn from this, everybody, players, especially me, I’m going to learn and I’m going to have to help the players push through, which I didn’t do this year.”

Throughout the year when both Ullmark and Swayman were on their way to winning the Jennings Trophy as the best goalie tandem, Montgomery was willing to give goalie coach Bob Essensa the credit for picking his goalie on a nightly basis. But he made it clear on Tuesday that, though the decision is made collectively, the buck stops with him.

“I make the final decision. I’m the one that picks the starter,” said Montgomery. “It’s not Goalie Bob’s decision, but I really rely on him heavily … we discuss this as a staff. I will talk in the playoffs even more with Sweens and Cam (Neely). And in the end, he wins Games 3 and 4, so you have two days off, you think Game 5’s going to go well. I personally spoke with Linus and he answered me a real honest question and took ownership of where he was at in Game 5. And what he relayed to me made me believe that you learn and grow and he was ready to grow and lead us to a Game 6 win. And that in the end is what made me decide that he was our goaltender for Game 6.”

Montgomery took both a micro and macro overview of what he perceived as his failures.

“Specifically, in hindsight you can go back and look at everything,” said Montgomery. “But the two things that came to mind are, I’ve already talked about the toll on the goaltenders and going to Sway a little earlier. What game that is, that’s debatable and that’s hindsight. Not starting with my normal lines for Game 5. I have my logic with why it made sense, but it didn’t help us with our start, obviously. So that I learned from. And I think I could have switched the ‘D’ pairings on who the matchups were with a little bit quicker. We were shutting down one line really well, we weren’t shutting down another line really well. We did for two games, but we didn’t for five. Those are things that really stick with me. But the number one thing is my job is to get players to elevate their games and I didn’t do that.”

While he may have regretted letting Ullmark talk his way into Game 6, he did not question his decision to let captain Patrice Bergeron, who had suffered a herniated disc in his back in the final regular season game, return to the lineup when he was medically cleared for Game 5. And he said Bergeron, who wound up struggling in the three games he played, didn’t give him much wiggle room.

“After Game 3 I called Patrice. We were in Florida and I said, ‘I know you’re doing better. I’ve seen the video of your rehab skates. If we won Game 4, is it prudent for us to give you more time?’ He said, ‘What do you mean? And I said, ‘Do we not play you in Game 5.’ He said ‘Monty, I’m playing Game 5,’ ” said Montgomery. “That was enough for me. You don’t keep Hall of Fame players out of the lineup.”

Changes coming

Whether the Bruins learn from this catastrophic loss or not, it’s clear some of the players will be taking those lessons elsewhere. Sweeney said he’s got no timetable for when he needs to hear Bergeron’s or David Krejci’s plans, adding he’ll operate with contingencies in mind like he did last summer. But with overages and incoming salaries, the B’s have just about $5 million under the cap. That’s without Bergeron and Krejci or RFAs Swayman and Trent Frederic under contract.

Cap flexibility will be perhaps Sweeney’s No. 1 job this offseason, which means some players with considerable salaries will have to go.

“Our goal for this season was to put the absolute best roster together and try to take a real legitimate run. And we failed. No question. So we have to pay that forward a little bit,” said Sweeney. “That might mean we’re instituting younger players, that might mean roster changes we’d like to make. That might mean we’d like to sign (the three deadline acquisitions) or other unrestricted players. We have to address the two RFAs and Frederic and Swayman, which we will do. And roster changes are likely coming. We’re not going to be the same team. But our mandate internally is we have a really strong core of guys that hopefully will continue to grow, will take leadership responsibilities moving forward regardless of whether Patrice and David walk back through the door. Because they need to.”

Said Neely: “I think we can still be a competitive team, but there’s a lot of work to do this summer.”

Owning the pain

Jacobs was asked what his father Jeremy, the chairman of the NHL Board of Governors, thought of the painful loss.

“Like all of us fans, he wants answers. He wants to understand, ‘How could this possibly transpire?’ I feel, personally, the same way. I feel incredibly disappointed. We, in that regard, feel the same way,” said Jacobs. “On many levels, I feel accountable for the fan base here and responsibility to deliver the best club that we can for the people of Boston and New England. I do feel like our management pushed all the right buttons this year to deliver the best possible team we could for our fans.”. …

Sweeney said that he’s got no impending decisions on his assistant coaches. It’s still to be determined on whether they all return.

Hockey is hockey and anything can happen, but this Bruins team gave every indication that it could buck the Presidents’ Trophy curse and go on a long run. Nope.

Despite the fact that GM Don Sweeney seemed to have planned for every contingency, there’s only so much you can do when your top two centers and elite goaltender pull up lame at the most inopportune time. When the B’s blew a 3-0 series lead to the Flyers in 2010, that team was still on the rise and won the Stanley Cup the next year, immediately removing the stench of that loss. With a cap crunch and possible retirements of stalwarts Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, this one could leave a mark on the franchise that could take a long time to remove.

Here are the playoff grades:

Forwards

Brad Marchand, B: Yes, a minus-6 is a minus-6. But Marchand elevated his game with the top two centermen out and led by example. The regular season was at times a struggle for him as he worked his way back from double hip surgery, but he had key contributions early in the series and his four-assist Game 6 should not have gone for naught.

Pavel Zacha, B: Perhaps the best thing to come out of this debacle is that it appears the former Devil is capable of playing in a top six centerman role. When the top two centers were out, Zacha stepped in and did a good job. He’s also proven to be both valuable and malleable. He can be plugged into any of the 12 forward positions and he’d thrive.

Taylor Hall, B: Hall was very good through the first five games of the series, when it should have been over and done with. He was very good in Games 3 and 4 in Florida and had the tying goal in the third period of Game 5. He was shut out in Games 6 (when he played less than 13 minutes for some reason) and 7, which hurt, but Hall showed up for this series.

Jake DeBrusk, B: DeBrusk had 4-2-6 totals in the seven games, the kind of output you’d expect from him. It would have been nice to see him on his regular line with Marchand and Patrice Bergeron in Game 7.

Tyler Bertuzzi, B-: He’s the best net-front presence on the power play the B’s have had in a long time and he did draw six penalties. But his tendency to make drop passes and soft plays at both blue lines did not help cutting through the Florida forecheck or establish O-zone time. Tough to see the team making a strong pitch to keep him, given the salary cap crunch.

David Pastrnak, B-: Thanks to a shoulder injury he suffered early in Game 1, he didn’t make an impact until Game 6, when he scored two goals but was stopped on a breakaway when the B’s could have taken a two-goal lead. He scored the go-ahead goal in Game 7 that should have held up as the GWG, and he hit the shaft of Sergei Bobrovsky’s stick in OT. So close to being the deciding factor in the series, but he wasn’t. Like Bertuzzi, he drew six penalties.

Charlie Coyle, B-: He was very good in Games 1-4, especially when he was asked to bump up to play in a top six role. Still, with just 1-1-2 totals, you’d like to see him use his brute strength to take the puck to the net a little more.

Nick Foligno, B-: Playing for the first time since leaving the lineup on Feb. 28, Foligno was slow out of the gate but played well in Florida. You have to wonder if he could have made a difference in Game 7.

Tomas Nosek, C+: Nosek was better than 60 percent at the faceoff circle, but the penalty kill, which was the best in the league in the regular season and a big part of Nosek’s value, killed at just 75 percent and was a big reason the B’s could not close out the series.

David Krejci, C+: Krejci missed three games with an undisclosed injury. He wasn’t able to do much in Games 1, 2 and 6, but he reached back in time for a strong Game 7. Just wasn’t quite enough.

Patrice Bergeron, C-: It was tough to watch him not be the player he could be. The captain was playing with a herniated disc in his back when he returned for Game 5 and the B’s in control of the series at 3-1. They didn’t win another game and Bergeron was a minus-6 in three games. He did score a power-play goal in Game 5, and he was still strong on faceoffs (70%) but that was it.

Garnet Hathaway, C-: He was not as much of a physical presence as it was hoped he’d be and he had a key blue line turnover in Game 7. In fairness, he didn’t have much of an opportunity to impact the series. He only cracked 10:00 in three of the seven games.

Jakub Lauko, C-: In minimal action, Lauko was tagged with a pair of minor penalties in the pivotal Game 5, the second of which led to a goal against.

Trent Frederic, D: Frederic made huge strides this year, but he couldn’t bury numerous chances in this series. In the regular season, you take the positive out of that and build on it. In the playoffs, those chances have to go in. He was also victimized on the same Game 7 goal on which Hathaway turned it over.

Defense

Brandon Carlo, B: Carlo was his mostly solid, defense-first presence but he did manage to pick up four helpers in the series. If the B’s had been able to lock down Game 7, he would have had the primary assist on the GWG. He loses a grade for the PK underachievement.

Dmitry Orlov, B: Orlov came about six inches away from ending Game 7 in regulation but he hit the crossbar. As it was, he had eight assists in the series and pushed the pace. If the B’s move out contracts to make room for any UFAs, this would be the guy to do that for.

Charlie McAvoy, B-: McAvoy imposed his will on the Panthers in Games 3 and 4, but could not tamp down the chaos of Game 6 and had the late equalizer go off him in Game 7. Bad break, but it counts.

Matt Grzelcyk, C+: Grzelcyk was mostly good, but he was on the ice for both overtime goals against. He was not much at fault on the Game 5 one when Linus Ullmark gave the puck away, but he was part of a group of Bruins beside the net who could not clear the puck on Game 7 series winner.

Hampus Lindholm, C: If Lindholm had the same stay-at-home profile as his partner Carlo, this would be a higher grade. But he was in the Norris Trophy discussion all season for the way he was able to transition the puck from offense to defense. He was tentative to start and seemed to get worse as the series progressed. He finished with 0-0-0 totals, and that’s with power-play time.

Derek Forbort, D: After playing so well in last season’s short playoff run, Forbort just didn’t have it after missing the final month and half of the season. The rust was real, and the PK – on which Forbort makes his bones – never regained its shutdown identity in the series.

Connor Clifton, D: Clifton set himself up for a nice payday this offseason with his best regular season, but he had an absolutely disastrous, minus-3 Game 6.

Goalies

Jeremy Swayman, B-: Given the situation, he performed pretty well in Game 7. He even made two Grade A stops in overtime before Carter Verhaege silenced the Garden.

Linus Ullmark, C-: We may never know how limited Ullmark was in the postseason and the fact that he wasn’t pulled earlier in the series is not his fault. But there’s no getting around the .896 save percentage and 3.33 GAA.

Coaching

Jim Montgomery, D: Line combinations that didn’t work, questionable goaltending decisions and the inability to figure out the Florida forecheck tarnished a terrific inaugural season for Montgomery and spelled doom for the winningest regular season team of all time.

To no one’s surprise, Montgomery was named one of the three finalists for the Adams – given to the top coach in the National Hockey League – in his first year with the Bruins.

Though the B’s historic season ended in early and bitter disappointment, there is little doubt that Montgomery is the favorite for the award after the B’s set the NHL record for wins (65), besting the 2018-19 Tampa Bay Lightning and 1995-96 Detroit Red Wings, and points (135), surpassing the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens.

The B’s also led the league in regulation wins (54), road wins (31) and goal differential (plus-128).

While the season ended far sooner than anyone hoped, the regular season exceeded the expectations of even the most optimistic Bruin fans. Starting the season with Brad Marchand, Charlie McAvoy and Matt Grzelcyk all on the shelf after offseason surgeries, the B’s exploded out of the gate, employing Montgomery’s new offensive system in which the defensemen became more active.

Thanks in part to the new aggressive approach, two D-men – McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm – topped the 50-point plateau, while David Pastrnak became the first Bruin to reach the 60-goal mark since Phil Esposito in 1974-75. The B’s were second in the league in goals scored (3.67 per game) while leading the league in goals against (2.12). The B’s also led the league in penalty kill (87.3%).

The other finalists for the award are the New Jersey Devils’ Lindy Ruff and the Seattle Kraken’s Dave Hakstol. The awards winners will be announced the NHL Awards Show on June 26 in Nashville.

Poitras signed

The Bruins signed one of their top amateur prospects on Friday, inking center Matthew Poitras to his three-year entry level deal worth an annual NHL cap hit of $870,000, with a minor league salary of $82,500.

The 5-foot-11, 180-pound Poitras was the B’s second-round selection (54th overall) in the 2022 draft. Poitras, 19, had an excellent season with the Guelph Storm of the Ontario Hockey League, collecting 16-79-95 totals in 63 games, ranking second in the OHL in assists and fifth in points.

It was a big bump up from his draft year in 2021-22, when he had 21-29-50 totals in 68 games. …

The B’s brass – CEO Charlie Jacobs, president Cam Neely, GM Don Sweeney and Montgomery – will hold their final post-mortem press conference on Tuesday at Legends in the Garden.

But if Bergeron does decide to hand over his No. 37 to equipment manager Keith Robinson for its inevitable ascension to the Garden rafters, there should be little doubt about which player should be getting the ‘C’ that’s been affixed to that jersey the last few of years.

As he’s matured and grown from being a player who wrestled with – and often lost to – his emotions on the ice, Brad Marchand has grown into an insightful voice in the dressing room who is as good as anyone in articulating the state of the team.

And the competitiveness that has always been the hallmark of his game was plainly evident in the playoffs. He was able to elevate his game from the regular season – when he battled inconsistency following double hip surgery – to record 10 points in the seven-game loss to the Panthers. When  Bergeron and David Krejci were out, Marchand was the tone-setter for the team that built a 3-1 series lead.

If sports were fair, his electric rush up the ice in the waning seconds of regulation of Game 5 would have ended with the puck landing in the back of the net. But it didn’t, and we know the rest of the story.

In the immediate aftermath of the Game 7 defeat, Marchand beat himself up over the fact that he did not cash in on that opportunity – a little unnecessarily, to these eyes, considering how much the expiring clock restricted his options. But a couple of days later, Marchand did offer his post-mortem of the series with a little more perspective.

Marchand is not one for sugar-coating things, and he did on one occasion use the F word – failure. But as he grappled with where and how things went off the rails, Marchand stressed that it would be a mistake to simply flush this 65-win season.

“We tried to avoid the pressure of the regular season (success) affecting the playoffs,” said Marchand. “Maybe we overthought that and misread how that would affect our group. We tried to get ahead of it. But there’s got to be another way to embrace it and use it to your advantage I’m not sure just what that is yet but we still built something really special in this room and that will carry over to next year. The relationships on ice and off ice will allow lines to thrive next and power play groups, penalty kills groups, the system that’s been implemented, all of that will helps us be a good team next year. If we just write this one off and say that it was a waste of a year (because) we didn’t accomplish what we set out to or expected to, I think that would be wrong.”

With the possible departures of Bergeron and Krejci and the salary cap crunch coming that it will make it difficult to sign unrestricted free agents Dmitry Orlov, Tyler Bertuzzi, Garnet Hathaway, Connor Clifton, Nick Foligno and Tomas Nosek, it may be hard to see next season being any kind of continuation of this one. But last September, no one saw this team winning 65 games, either.

“The salary cap may be an issue for a year, but then the cap’s going to go through the roof over the next couple of years,” said Marchand. “Whatever happen with Bergy and Krech – if they come back next year it’ll look very similar, minus a couple of guys, and be very competitive – and if not, you’ve got to look at what (Pavel Zacha and Charlie Coyle) could do in Games 3 and 4 and the way our team looked. So I assume we’ll be a very competitive group. And with anyone moving on, it brings opportunity for other guys to step up. I don’t think anyone expected Zacha to have the year he did and the depth he adds to the group. He was like another Bergy out there. Someone else will do that if given the opportunity. That’s how people find jobs and start careers. People move on and opportunities open up and you seize the moment. That’s going to happen again. The organization and team management, ownership, they want to win. They push that and make sure that’s (the goal) every year. So no matter who’s in or out, they’re going to do whatever they can to make sure this team can win.”

No matter who is back next year or who isn’t, Marchand hopes the pain that everyone is feeling now can be the same fuel that was used by the organization over a decade ago when they blew a 3-0 series lead to the Flyers in 2010.

“It doesn’t get any easier and I’m sure it won’t for a while, but you have to take it for what it is. At the end of the day, the sun still rises and these are the things that you go through that make your team stronger down the road,” said Marchand. “Obviously, it’s not the way that we would’ve liked to end the season but I think the worst thing that we could do is not try to learn from it and not try to take out what we can from this year, and from our experiences and our failures. The year we won in ’11 the year before that, Bruins were up in the series, up in Game 7, and they learned from that. The next year they went out, and it made them stronger, and they achieved it the next year. So it’s something that we can learn from and build upon, you know we won’t be the first to say that we expected a lot more out of this run. We expected to be playing into June, but that’s not how it was meant to be.”

You can agree or disagree with Marchand’s assessment. But it is what a future captain would and should say.

But the likely Vezina Trophy winner knows what he was able to give his team in the post-season was not good enough.

In typical Ullmark fashion, he was philosophical about the whole experience, and intentionally vague.

“You know what, here’s the deal, we all go through things in life. We all go through things come playoff time. We all battle our different things, whether it’s mentally or it’s physically,” said Ullmark on Bruins’ breakup day at Warrior Ice Arena on Tuesday. “We all have our stuff. We all want to help the team out to the best of our capabilities. Yeah, it’s pretty evident that I didn’t play the way that I wanted to. I wasn’t as good as I wanted to be, and unfortunately at the worst time possible. That’s something I have to live with and I’m just so grateful for all the guys that are in this room, that are in the medical room, everybody that’s in this organization. The guys in the medical room do everything they can for us and they were true warriors throughout the season. I have full respect, I fully support everything they have and the trust that we have for them is immense. They helped me throughout this whole season to keep me in battling shape.”

In describing his situation, Ullmark went back to the age-old athlete’s saying that there’s a difference between being hurt and being injured. He maintains that he was the former, though he could not answer whether he’d need offseason surgery until he met with the medical staff again.

“You can be hurt and still play. That’s what we were doing,” said Ullmark. “You had different people dealing with broken bones, like (Zdeno) Chara when he had a broken jaw. Was he hurting? Yeah, he was hurting. Some things you can play through without it making you play worse.”

How hard is it for an athlete to identify the line between being hurt and being injured?

“I think it’s easier when it’s regular season compared to playoffs. Because you know that the other team is hurting as well, there some bumps and bruises and everything like that,” said Ullmark. “And you don’t want to be liability to your team. And you don’t have to know the time to step back. And like I said before, with the help of the medical team, I felt confident before every single game.”

He said he never would put the team’s success in jeopardy.

“I had full confidence in my abilities in every single game. That’s the honest truth. Otherwise, I would have stepped aside. This is a team game. We win together and we lose together,” said Ullmark.

But when a goalie is playing at less than 100 percent, it’s different than when a position player is battling through something. The goalie is the last line of defense, and every goal against is magnified in the playoffs.

And Ullmark did not look much like the player he was in the regular season, when he went 40-6-1 with a .938 save percentage and a 1.89 GAA. In the postseason, he had .896 save percentage and a 3.33 GAA in going 3-3. In a painful way, his subpar performance in the post-season highlighted how much the B’s needed him to be great during the regular season.

How much did his physical ailments affect his play?

“It’s tough to answer that question. I don’t think there’s a great answer to it,” said Ullmark. “Frustrating? Yeah, it is frustrating. Because this is the most fun time to play hockey, when the playoffs come around. You want to feel at your best when push comes to shove. When you’re not, you’ve just got to deal with it. That’s the hand you’ve been dealt. You’ve got to own up to it, try to learn from it for next time and try to enjoy it as much as possible.”

In the end, he understood the decision to go with Jeremy Swayman in Game 7.

“I could have played Game 7. I fully respect the decision to let Sway into play that one if the team feels like that’s the way they want to go and I fully support it,” said Ullmark.

No retirement news

Neither Patrice Bergeron nor David Krejci, who both finished up one-year deals, were ready to say whether they were ready to retire or not. But Krejci, whose family remained in South Carolina during the season, talked about how hard the season was on him.

“I think it was one of the best years, but also one of the worst years. It was a roller coaster,” said Krejci. “There were a few times during this season that, if we were not doing good, I’d have just packed it up and gone back (home). From that standpoint, it was tough. But then coming here every day, seeing the guys, it just made it worth it.”

Bergeron wanted to take the time decompress and then gauge whether he’s got another year in him and that he knows “you can still help, on and off the ice, physically and mentally.”

If this is it, what kind of imprint does he hope he’s left on the organization?

“That’s a good question. I’m not sure. If it is, it’s that I left everything out there … and that I’m thankful and grateful. But we’re no there yet,” said Bergeron.

Bergeron and Krejci said their decisions will be between retirement or returning to the Bruins.

Not surprisingly, Bergeron was named a Selke finalist again.

Uncertainity

As for other free agents Connor Clifton and Nick Foligno, both expressed a strong desire to return but to Boston  but both acknowledged the difficulty of the cap situation. The 35-year-old Foligno said he does want to continue playing, whether it’s here or elsewhere.

Dmitry Orlov also talked about how much he’s loved it in his short time in Boston and would like to return, but it doesn’t sound like there’ll be any new hometown discount from him.

“I basically feel like it’s my last contract and I’m going to be 32. We’ll see,” said Orlov. “”Right now I cannot say anything because it’s just two days after the season and I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen. Everybody just needs time to figure out what we ‘re gong to do, which way we’re going to move. It’s not just my decision. There are so many people involved. We’ll see.”

But how low is Sunday’s Game 7 loss by the Bruins when compared to other defeats? The 2022-23 Bruins made history in the regular season winning 65 games. They were chasing the Stanley Cup. Now? Were all crying in our beer.

How does this loss rank among other ignominious losses? Take the Herald poll RIGHT HERE and we’ll circle back later this week with the results and your comments:

Bruins fall to Panthers (2023):

The team had a wild opening round secured, until with 59 seconds left to go the Panthers tied it up sending the game into OT. That’s where Carter Verhaege scored at 8:35 of overtime to lift Floridians to a shocking 4-3 victory.

Patriots vs. Giants (Super Bowl XLII, 2008):

This one still hurts. With a perfect season on the line, the Patriots let history slip away with a stunning 17-14 defeat. David Tyree made an improbable helmet catch and the Giants sent the Patriots into history with an 18-1 mark, spoiling what would have been the greatest season in Boston sports.

Red Sox vs Mets World Series (1986):

One sentence sums up this epic collapse: The ball went through Bill Buckner’s legs. After ousting the Angels in the ALCS, a championship was within the Red Sox’ grasp in Game 6 of the World Series when a ground ball went through Buckner’s legs. The Mets won it in seven, and the Red Sox didn’t make it to the World Series again until 2004.

Celtics vs. Warriors NBA Finals (2022):

The Celtics battled back to push the Warriors to a Game 6 in the Garden, only to fall to the Splash brothers 103-90. The Warriors became the only opponent other than the 1985 Lakers to clinch an NBA title on the Garden parquet.

Red Sox vs. Reds World Series (1975):

You had Carlton Fisk’s iconic home run in Game 6 that forced a Game 7. Add to that an amazing Luis Tiant on the mound and superstar rookies Fred Lynn and Jim Rice. But Boston fell short to Cincinnati in a 4-3 loss at Fenway Park.

Honorable mention: Mike Dukakis (1988):

The “Massachusetts Miracle” couldn’t help Democratic presidential nominee Gov. Michael Dukakis push past Vice President George H. W. Bush. Blame it on the worst campaign photo op in history. That’s the day they put Dukakis in a tank while wearing a helmet. Not a sporting event fail, but it sure sums up how we feel today — defeated.

And in the end, the Bruins had so much depth that they didn’t know what to do with it. Literally.

As we sit here on the Day After, sifting through the wreckage of the B’s shattered dreams and first-round series loss to what — according to the league standings — was the worst team in the playoffs, that’s what comes to mind.

The B’s team that would eventually win a record 65 games was buoyed by some strong additions at the trade deadline by GM Don Sweeney, but coach Jim Montgomery never figured out what his best lineup and line combinations were.

As late as Game 7, Montgomery was still experimenting with his combos, trying out a line of Tyler Bertuzzi with Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand for the first time in the playoffs after they played a total of 7:06 together in the regular season. Sadly but yet fittingly, that unit was on the ice for the overtime game-winner that Florida’s Carter Verhaege scored.

The fatal fluidity of the line combinations was partly beyond Montgomery’s control. He never had a fully healthy team down the stretch to really evaluate it all. The B’s lost Taylor Hall to injury on Feb. 25 and he did not return until the final three games of the regular season. Nick Foligno was lost to injury from Feb. 28 until the end of the season. Bergeron was rested for four games down the stretch before suffering a herniated disc in Game 82. David Krejci missed the final six games to injury.

There was little opportunity for vital trial-and-error for Montgomery down the stretch with a full, healthy roster at his disposal.

Still, there were some real head-scratching decisions. The one that sticks out is the one Montgomery himself acknowledged as a regret in the immediate aftermath of the Game 7. That was his decision in Game 5, when the Bruins had a chance to end the series in five games at home, to start with an untested line of Bertuzzi, Bergeron and David Pastrnak. It would have been an interesting concept if it was tried out in say, Game 67 of the regular season, but not in a playoff series and not when Bergeron was returning to play after missing the first four games with what we now know is herniated disc in his back.

Familiarity should have been a paramount consideration in that situation. Instead, it was quick-striking disaster. The Panthers scored the first goal of the game against that line off a Bertuzzi turnover and the B’s were playing catch-up all night.

There were other questionable calls. Montgomery’s decision in Game 5 to go with rookie Jakub Lauko over Trent Frederic proved costly, with Lauko getting whistled for two penalties, one that produced a Florida go-ahead goal in the third period. Then there was the decision to stick with Marchand-Bergeron-Bertuzzi line till the bitter end in Game 7, despite the fact that it had little going all night and Jake DeBrusk, the right wing on that line for most of the season, was there to be inserted.

And then there was the biggest depth mismanagement of all – the goaltending. We’re not a fan of alternating the goalies just like they did in the regular season. We also find it understandable that the brain trust – and goalie decisions these days are made by committee, apparently – would choose to go back with Linus Ullmark in Game 5. But Game 6 would have been the perfect opportunity to go with Jeremy Swayman after Ullmark’s glove hand looked a little slow on a couple of goals allowed in Game 5, not to mention Ullmark’s game-ending giveaway that very well could have been fatigue-fueled. Swayman would have been perfectly capable of winning Game 6. If not, they could have gone back with a rested Ullmark for Game 7.

And if Ullmark was suffering from a “debilitating and painful injury,” as ESPN’s Kevin Weekes reported on Monday, the decision to stick with him at any point would have been even more egregious. However bad the malady was, there’s plenty of smoke around the injury theory, of course. He left Game 81 in the third period with a lower body injury and did not make the trip to Montreal for the regular season finale with the all the other regulars. Ullmark was also unavailable to reporters after his win in Game 4 of the Florida series because he was receiving medical treatment. If Ullmark was indeed badly hurt, it made no sense not to go with a goalie in Swayman who went 24-6-4 with a .920 save percentage and a 2.27 GAA.

This is not to let the players off the hook. Montgomery didn’t tell Hampus Lindholm to airmail the puck into the stands in Game 6 or foul off a glittering one-timer chance in Game 7. He didn’t tell his wings to continually lose battles along the boards and at the blue line, like Garnet Hathaway and Frederic did in Game 7 on the Panthers’ second goal.

But the fact of the matter is the coach didn’t fully suss out the best way to utilize the enviable depth available to him. And considering the age of some key players, the coming salary cap crunch and the draft capital it took to purchase that depth, there’s no telling when the Bruins will have that “good problem” again.

Bergeron had a hug and a consoling word for each of his teammates as they made their way off the ice. The emotion was most evident in his exchanges with David Krejci and Brad Marchand, two players who helped Bergeron hoist the Stanley Cup on a warm June night in Vancouver in 2011.

Before leaving for the clubhouse, Bergeron lifted his stick in salute to the Bruins fans, with whom he had developed a special relationship over the years.

The Garden crowd was in a foul mood after Panthers’ center Carter Verhaeghe’s game-winner at 8:35 of overtime brought the curtain down on the Bruins’ historic season. But the fans set aside their ire to give Bergeron a proper tribute.

“It has been an incredible experience just because he awareness and his maturity and his ability to communicate and he would listen as part of that communication,” said first year Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery. “Then there is how great a hockey player he is and I learned a lot from him this year.

“I hope to learn more next year.”

Montgomery’s remarks were a pretext to an overriding question. Did Bergeron play in his final game as a member of the Boston Bruins? Bergeron said after the game he was dealing with a herniated disc in his back throughout the series. Bergeron was noncommittal when asked directly if this was his last game, citing the need to talk things over with family and friends.

“It was hard because you battle all year for that,” said Bergeron. “I am going to take some time to be with family but right now it is hard to process anything except to say it is disappointing.

“Again, it hurts right now but I am going to sit back and see. I am proud of this group and I am close with this group, this is a special group with what we had ultimately, this is not what we wanted.”

If Bergeron does decide to call it a career, the C he wore with class and distinction will likely reappear on Marchand’s jersey. Bergeron was a linemate, friend and advisor to Marchand whom he mentored for many years.

“He is special and hopefully it is not but at the end of the day he has to make his decision going forward,” said Marchand. “Whatever he decides to do if he is going to play again is something.”

Marchand plays the game of hockey to his own distinct beat and that is what has made him and NHL All-Star and one of the best players in the game. But Marchand said that Bergeron has been his role model in the ways he conducts his private life.

“He is like the perfect person on and off the ice and such and incredible leader,” said Marchand. “He is a family man, a great father and a great friend and he is always thinking about everybody else first.

“That wore off on me quite a bit and it really changed the way I approached my daily life and the way I approach the game. I will never be able to say enough great things about him. He allowed me to be in the position to play alongside him for a long time.

“We have been lucky to have him as part of this group.”

The 65-win team blew a 3-1 series lead, and then a late one-goal lead to the Florida Panthers in Game 7 at the Garden on Sunday night before Carter Verhaege scored at 8:35 of overtime to lift Floridians to a shocking 4-3 victory.

The Bruins have known heartbreak before in the last half-century. The ’71 loss to the Canadiens. The ’79 too-many-men defeat, again to the Habs. Of a more recent vintage, there was the blown 3-0 series lead to the Flyers in 2010 and the Game 7 defeat on home ice in 2019 to the Blues. But this is right up there with the most shocking, ignominious playoff losses in their 99-year history.

But the Panthers earned every bit of this series, proving more resilient than the team that set the record for most wins and points in a season.

Gallery: Bruins fall to Panthers in historic Stanley Cup playoff collapse

If this is the last we see of Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, it’s a very tough way to go out for two guys who should have their numbers in the rafters at some point.

“The regular season was very special with what we were able to build together. But at the end of the day, you play the regular season to get a spot in the playoffs to play for a Stanley Cup and that’s the goal every year, to play for a Stanley Cup, not to dominate the regular season,” said Brad Marchand in a hushed Bruins dressing room. “It was special what we were able to build, what we were able to do together. But we fell short of our goal.”

Coach Jim Montgomery, who pushed all the right buttons in the regular, lost the magic touch in the post-season as he made some decisions that will be second-guessed for years to come. He himself said the choice to split up Bergeron and Marchand to start Game 5 when the team was poised to close it out is one that he regrets. There are others that are highly debatable as well.

“I guess the words that come to mind right now are disappointment, confusion,” said Montgomery of his emotions. “And then I’d say the other part is, if you start looking at the season, it was an honor to coach that group,” said Montgomery. “I know we didn’t get to where we wanted, I get that. But their profressionalism, their work ethic, their commitment to being pros, it was a joy to be around.”

The B’s almost got through to the next round.

With the Florida goalie pulled, Brandon Montour scored his second goal of the game to tie it with 59.3 seconds left in regulation when his shot from the left circle deflected off of Charlie McAvoy’s stick and past Jeremy Swayman to even the score at 3-3 and send it to OT.

That was a gut punch to the B’s, who had played a solid third period.

After falling being 2-0 early in the second period, the B’s tied it up with two power-play goals. David Krejci got them on the board in the second period and then, 55 seconds into the third period, Tyler Bertuzzi tied it when he redirected Dmitry Orlov’s shot past Sergei Bobrovsky.

Then the B’s took their first lead of the game at 4:11 of the third. Krejci sent Brandon Carlo off on a rush and he unleashed a slapper from well above the right circle. Sergei Bobrovsky kicked it out right to David Pastrnak, who ripped it past the flailing goalie.

Charlie McAvoy was called for high-sticking with 9:12 to go in regulation, but the B’s came up with a big kill and looked like they just might grind it out.

Orlov had a chance to give the B’s a two-goal lead with a rush but he hit crossbar with just over four minutes left.

Then Montour evened it up. In the OT, Jeremy Swayman, starting his first game of the series, stopped Matthew Tkachuk on a clean breakaway and then Verhaege. But on the winner, Sasha Barkov dug out a puck at the side of the net and fed Verhaege in the right circle, from where he beat Swayman through a mass of bodies in front, ripping the life out of the Garden.

“I saw it go low-to-high and then I just wanted to seal the low ice, but he saw a corner and dragged and shot it around some bodies. But it’s something I want back, for sure,” said Swayman.

The was everything you’d want from a Game 7, a tension-filled, back-and-forth affair. In the first period, Taylor Hall gave the Panthers their second PP for tripping Anthony Duclair in the neutral zone and it was on that advantage that Florida took the first lead of the game at 12:23. It looked like the B’s were going to kill it off until Montour broke out of his own zone on a purposeful rush. He played give-and-go with Anton Lundell at the B’s blue line and Montour then beat  Swayman to the shortside on a backhander at 12:23.

Then early in the second period, the B’s habitual inability to get out of their zone stung them again. After a borderline icing call brought the puck back into the B’s zone, Garnet Hathaway tried a soft one-hand chip to get the puck past the left point but it was turned back. Then Aaron Ekblad stepped in front of Trent Frederic to keep the puck in on the other side of the ice. Eventually, Eetu Luostarinen fed Sam Reinhart for a wrister from the right circle that Swayman’s glove could not catch up to, making it a two-goal game at 1:14 of the second.

Turnovers at the blue line killed the B’s all series.

“Our wall play wasn’t good enough,” said Montgomery. “Give them credit. They were ultra-competitive and caused a lot of extra opportunities in the offensive zone.”

A pall of uneasiness enveloped the Garden at that point and the B’s looked rattled. They missed simple passes and continually turned the puck over.

That continued on the power play after Pastrnak drew a tripping penalty on Marc Staal. But with 11 seconds left on the advantage, Krejci blasted a one-timer from an Orlov pass and beat Bobrovsky to the shortside to make 2-1 at 7:52.

The B’s earned another power play late in the period when Montour crosschecked Tyler Bertuzzi, but the B’s could do nothing with it.

They got another with 44 seconds left in the period when Montour was called for roughing on Pastrnak. They would even it up on the other side in the third period and then take the lead.

But they just could not put away the Panthers. And the B’s will have to live with it for a long, long time. Many won’t get another chance like this.

But before the morning proceedings were over, it was clear that Jeremy Swayman was getting the nod for his first start this post-season.

Swayman was the first goalie off the ice, indicating that he’d get his first start of this post-season in the do-or-die game, then led the team out for warm-ups. Meanwhile both Nick Foligno and Connor Clifton were scratched in favor of Trent Frederic and Matt Grzelcyk.

While Montgomery would not discuss his lineup changes specifically, he said they were all difficult in such an important game.

“If you make a change at any position, it’s really hard, because we have a group that’s given everything to the team all year,” said Montgomery after the very brief morning skate. “And everyone wants to play in a Game 7. When you’re a kid growing up and you love hockey, whether you’re playing knee hockey with your brother or your best friend, or you’re playing knee hockey with your Pee Wee team, staying in a tournament and playing in the hallways of a hotel, it’s always Game 7. It’s never the first game. I told the team, when I played, I had a neighbor who wasn’t very good, but I let him win three games so we could get to a Game 7. That’s what you love about it. In your career as a player, if you play 10 years, you might get two Game 7s. How thrilling is that, to be able to live your childhood dreams?”

For Swayman, it was quite a spot to be put in. He hadn’t started a game since the regular season finale in Montreal on April 13. He did see mop-up action in the final 3:11 of the B’s Game 4 win in Sunrise with a three-goal lead after Linus Ullmark was pulled after he got into a tiff with Matthew Tkachuk.

But it didn’t seem like the Bruin decision-makers – Montgomery, goalie coach Bob Essensa and no doubt the brass – had much of a choice. Ullmark played well in Game 1 and in Games 3 and 4 down in Florida, but he had given up 10 goals in his last two games of the series and nine in the last two games at the Garden.

Swayman (27 saves) wasn’t perfect, but he did come up with two big saves in OT, stopping Matthew Tkachuk on a breakaway and then a stop on a tip by eventual hero Carter Verhaege.

“I just wanted to do my job. I know I was one save short, so it sucks. I think I owe the guys one more save. I’ll take the positives and move forward, but this one stings,” said Swayman.

The scratching of Foligno had to be a tough one, and reminiscent of Bruce Cassidy’s scratching of David Backes in Games 6 and 7 of the Stanley Cup Final against the St. Louis Blues in 2019. That worked out in Game 6, not so much in Game 7.

Frederic played in the first four games when the B’s built a 3-1 series lead, but was a surprise Game 5 scratch in favor of rookie Jakub Lauko, who took two penalties, including a costly third period one. When David Krejci returned to the lineup for Game 6 in Florida, that bumped both Lauko and Frederic out of the lineup.

Clifton, meanwhile, had a disastrous minus-3 Game 6 after he had sat out the previous three games….

Hovering in the air at Warrior on Sunday morning was the very real possibility that Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci could be playing their last games in the Bruin sweater. Both are 37, on cheap one-year deals and both have contemplated retirement.

And it was thick in the air after the loss.

Asked about Bergeron, Swayman spoke glowingly.

“He’s one of the best humans I’ve ever met, one of the best leaders I’ve ever met and I would do anything for that guy because I know he’d do the same for me. And he do the same for any stranger in the street,” said Swayman. “When you have that feeling for a human being, you want to do whatever you can to make him happy. I know that he’s brought so much happiness to our team, our lives, our families and I couldn’t be more lucky to have been a part of a team with him as our captain.”…

The Bruins have done a lot of uncharacteristic things in this series, but the failure of the penalty kill has been a big one, especially in Games 5 and 6 when the Panthers cashed in on three of six chances. The B’s have scored a pair of shorthanded goals but they haven’t made them the dagger-to-the-heart strikes that shorties often are.

The B’s got gashed again on the PK in Game 7 when Brandon Montour scored his first of two goals in the first period to give the Panthers a 1-0 lead. Though there were lead changes in both Games 6 and 7, the team that scored the first goal won all seven games.

“I think you’ve got to give credit to the other team,” said Montgomery in the morning. “They’ve made some adjustments, they’ve moved the puck well, they’ve attacked the net well and they’ve gotten a lot of zone time. I think it’s a combination of things, but Florida’s doing a good job. It comes down to that. There’s couple of things we need to adjust to. And I know we will.”…

The B’s had numerous chances to end the Panthers’ season and move on. One in particular sticks in Brad Marchand’s craw. It was at the end of regulation in Game 5 when he created a breakaway for himself but was stopped by Sergei Bobrovsky in the final seconds.

He said that “Is going to stick with me forever,” adding “That was my moment and I didn’t capitalize on it.”

Montgomery went with a line of Bergeron, Tyler Bertuzzi and Marchand, but they could not get much going all night at 5-on-5 and had troulbe breaking out of their zone. And in the end, the trio was on the ice for the overtime winner.

Bertuzzi and Pavel Zacha were both tagged with three turnovers…

Hampus Lindholm had a season worthy of Norris Trophy consideration, but he finished the seven game series with 0-0-0 totals. Ouch.

The Florida Panthers forced a deciding Game 7 in their opening round Stanley Cup playoff series with a 7-5 victory over the Bruins on Friday night at FLA Live Arena in Sunrise, Fla. The Bruins and Panthers take the ice for the final time on Sunday night (6:30) at the TD Garden.

The only benefit the Bruins got from winning the Presidents Trophy while setting NHL single season records for wins (65) and points (135) is the “opportunity” to host Game 7 in a series they once led 3-1.

“Opportunity, that’s the word that comes to my mind,” said Bruins coach Jim Montgomery following the team’s arrival on Saturday afternoon at Hanscom Field.

“You are playing a Game 7 at home. We had the regular season we had. That is over and done with but it got us this Game 7 in front of our great fans. It’s an opportunity to go and seize the moment.”

Bruins team captain Patrice Bergeron will be playing in the 14th Game 7 of his career, the most in NHL history by a forward. Bergeron will tie the NHL record of 14 held by former Bruins captain Zdeno Chara.

The Bruins’ captain suffered an undisclosed upper body injury in the season finale at Montreal and missed the first four games against the Panthers.

Bergeron played well in his return for Game 5 but was a non-factor in Game 6, where he skated 17:27 minutes with no points and was a minus-3.

“I am excited and I am looking forward to the opportunity first and foremost,” said Bergeron. “Yeah, Game 7, I am excited about that and it is one of those things when you were a kid you always dreamed of being a part of.

“Now we are here and the first six games do not matter. Just play the game and take a breath after every shift and be focused and stay in the moment.”

Goalie choice

Montgomery was non-committal when pressed about replacing Linus Ullmark with Jeremy Swayman in goal for Game 7. Montgomery did not rule out a goaltending change while adding that it could be a group decision to be handed down after the pregame skate.

Ullmark is a lock to win the Vezina Trophy but has not looked sharp in the series, especially in the last two games where he has allowed 10 goals.

Ullmark has started six games with 20 goals allowed and a very pedestrian 3.33 goals against average and .896 save percentage. He allowed six goals on 32 shots in Game 6.

“Linus didn’t make enough stops, that would be the reason for me to (make a change), plain and simple,” said Montgomery. “I do not regret the decisions we’ve made as a staff and that I personally made for lineup decisions and who has been in net.

“When it comes to Jeremy Swayman, he is the most confident individual that I know. He kind of like you give the ball to (Roger) Clemens to go and win Game 7 on the mound. You are down in the last two minutes and Tom Brady has the ball. You like your chances.”

Behind Door No. 1? It’s the opportunity to prove they are the better team, which they are. They have a  chance to learn from their mistakes, from the coaching staff on down (there have been a few whoppers), and come out on the other side stronger and smarter for having gone through the fire.

What is behind Door No. 2 is decidedly less palatable. From a local perspective, a loss in Game 7 would join this team at the hip with the 1971 Bruins as a colossal playoff flop. Of a more recent vintage, it would link them to the 2019 Tampa Bay Lightning. Both teams had record-setting regular seasons only to be bounced in the first round.

But there is a big difference between these B’s and both the ’71 Black and Gold ’19 Bolts. The latter two teams were still ascendant franchises who could and did make good on their do-over opportunities.

For the 2022-23 B’s, this is it. Age and a coming salary cap crunch dictate that this team will at least be partially detonated.

Yeah, there’s quite a bit of pressure involved on Sunday evening, even more than your average Game 7. And it’s all on the Bruins.

So how did we get here?

The B’s were in full control of this series, up 3-1 with a chance to close out the series on home ice in Game 5. Then they decided to get cute. With the return of Patrice Bergeron from an injury he suffered in Game 82, coach Jim Montgomery went with unfamiliar line combinations. He split up Bergeron and Brad Marchand – a pairing that’s been working for a dozen years – to try Bergeron with David Pastrnak and Tyler Bertuzzi, a trio that had never skated together as a unit.

It looked like it. They got hemmed in their own end and gave up the first goal of the game when Bertuzzi threw the puck into his own slot. They would play catch-up all night and, it should be noted that as crazy as this series has been, the team that scores the first goal has won all six games.

There was also the questionable choice to play rookie Jakub Lauko over Trent Frederic, who had undergone his own playoff baptismal fire last season but didn’t get a chance to show he’d learned anything from it. Lauko committed two penalties, the second one a third-period call that led to another Florida go-ahead goal.

And there were signs that Linus Ullmark was tiring in that Game 5. All three regulation goals were Grade A opportunities, but when he’s been on his game, he would have stopped at least one of them. It very well could have been physical fatigue that led to his mental mistake on the giveaway that led to overtime game-winner.

Game 6 presented a great chance to lean on the depth about which the club has rightly boasted all year. From our standpoint, it appeared to be the perfect time to start Jeremy Swayman, who would have been perfectly capable of giving a winning performance, especially handed five goals with which to work. Even if they’d lost, they could have come back with a rested Ullmark for Game 7. But the collaborative decision was made to stick with Ullmark, and he gave up six. Now the choice for Game 7 is either an apparently weary-looking Ullmark or Swayman, who hasn’t played since April 13.

One more Game 6 personnel choice that backfired was inserting Connor Clifton for Matt Grzelcyk. Clifton is unquestionably a gamer, but from the get-go it appeared he was trying too hard to make an impact. In the first period, he was whistled for charging and had a costly turnover that led to the Panthers’ second goal. In the third period, his clear attempt was stopped at the blue line and resulted in the GWG. He was minus-3 and the Clifton-Derek Forbort pairing has not clicked like it did in last year’s post-season.

Yes, mistakes have been made. There have also been some straight-up subpar performances, such as Hampus Lindholm’s 0-0-0 effort so far.

But the B’s still have a chance to flush all that. And if you’re looking for a positive development from Game 6, it is that the dynamic version of David Pastrnak (two goals, seven shots) returned. Perhaps that was tied to big brother David Krejci being back in the lineup, perhaps not. But Pastrnak has the ability to tip the scales in the Bruins’ favor by himself.

A win in Game 7 could be cathartic and could set the B’s up for a long run, just like first-round Game 7 wins did in 2011, 2013 and 2019.

A loss would be calamitous. If this is indeed the last seasons for estimable Bergeron and Krejci, they do not deserve to go out that way.