An overtime winner in Game 7 sends Bruins into a playoff rematch with the Panthers - The Boston Globe (2024)

It’s the third straight Game 7 the Bruins have taken from the Maple Leafs.

The Bruins will now head to South Florida for a playoff rematch with the Panthers that begins 8 p.m. Monday.

“I’ve played with him for a long enough time to know that I can see when he swings like that, and I know [the Leafs] doing like three across there, so it’s try to get [the puck] behind them and I got a good bounce there and obviously Pasta did his magic,” said Lindholm, who scored Boston’s first goal.

Auston Matthews playing at half speed is still a threat and he proved in the third, setting up the first goal of the game.

Brandon Carlo fell in the corner while being harassed by Tyler Bertuzzi, who pushed the puck to Matthews. He dangled toward the net and then hit a streaking William Nylander, who one-timed it past Jeremy Swayman at 9:01.

Moments later Swayman made the save of the game — possibly the series — on Joel Edmundson to keep it a one-goal game.

The Bruins evened it just over a minute later when Hampus Lindholm capped a mini-flurry by lifting a soft shot past Ilya Samsonov.

Lindholm patiently waited for bodies to clear in front before throwing it to the net, where it deflected off Samsonov’s arm and in.

It was Lindholm’s first playoff goal as a Bruin and his first since connecting for the Ducks in 2018.

“Just trying to get pucks to the net. I think I’ve been holding on to pucks, try to make it a little too hard myself,” said Lindholm. “So, you just try to find a little opening and you just get it there, and then good things usually happen.”

That set the stage for Pastrnak’s winner, heeding the call of his head coach to step up when it mattered.

“It’s the beautiful thing about playoffs, it’s always about the next play,” Pastrnak said in the postgame TV interview. “Toronto gave us an unbelievable battle, but I’m glad we made the next play.”

The other big reason why Boston won this Game 7 in overtime was Swayman, who stopped 30 of 31 shots to propel the Bruins onward. Samsonov, a surprise starter for Game 5 and 6 winner Joseph Woll, finished with 29 saves.

If there were any early butterflies buzzing in the tummies, they died early as the Bruins and Maple Leafs came out fully engaged.

It was a noticeable change for the Black and Gold, which had started more timid than torrid in the previous two games, when shots and scoring chances were scarce.

The Bruins landed 11 shots on Samsonov — who got the call because Woll, arguably the hero of the Leafs’ last two wins, was unavailable after sustaining an injury late in Game 6.

Samsonov turned all 11 aside. At the other end, Swayman was clean on all eight Maple Leaf bids.

Birthday boy James van Riemsdyk kicked things off for Boston, leading an early rush that led to an in-close chance for Justin Brazeau. Van Riemsdyk, the 35-year-old former Leafs star, also landed a hard wrister from the slot off a patient feed from Brazeau.

Lindholm had a strong start, landing four shots on Samsonov as the Bruins had their high-to-low game working.

Charlie Coyle, stuck on 2 points in the series coming in, picked off a pass at center ice and sent Jake DeBrusk in, but the winger couldn’t get a good angle and his backhander skittered right to Samsonov.

Lindholm’s best shot was kicked out by Samsonov but DeBrusk couldn’t bury the juicy rebound, and the Russian keeper dove to the top of the crease to smother the second rebound.

Among Swayman’s best saves were a glove flash on Simon Benoit’s bomb from the point and a pad stop on Nylander.

The refs kept their whistles stashed for the first 20 minutes, the only glaring mistake was a missed hooking call by Matthew Knies on DeBrusk, leading to the aforementioned Nylander bid.

Pavel Zacha opened the second with a nice rush (in which all five Bruins touched the puck), landing a wrister that Samsonov gloved.

A Brandon Carlo turnover in the circle led to a Tyler Bertuzzi point-blanker, but Swayman squeezed it.

Boston got the first power play of the night when Timothy Liljegren tripped van Riemsdyk as the Bruin winger pushed through the slot.

Kevin Shattenkirk’s blue-line blast was the only shot the Bruins landed during the two minutes, which almost ended in disaster when Swayman misplayed the puck behind the net, and it ended up on Mitch Marner’s stick. The slick Leafs forward couldn’t convert, however, and it remained scoreless.

The Leafs got their chance with the man advantage when Coyle was called for cross-checking Max Domi soon after. Auston Matthews landed a one-timer and the Leafs buzzed, but Swayman and his defenders killed it, leading to a standing ovation when the penalty was up.

Knies was nabbed for hooking Pastrnak, but again the Bruins couldn’t cash in, with Pastrnak’s one-timer the only real threat on Samsonov.

Knies nearly redeemed himself out of the box on a breakaway, but Shattenkirk swept the puck off the forward’s stick a split second before he bowled over Swayman.

Mason Lohrei led a Bruins flurry toward the end of the period, as the rookie defenseman continues to show that the moment has not been too big for him. Lohrei’s wrister after a nice rush glanced off Samsonov’s glove, and the clubs headed to the dressing room tied at goose eggs after 40 minutes.

They traded goals in the third, setting the stage for Pastrnak’s heroics.

“I thought he was dynamic,” Jim Montgomery said of Pastrnak. “When I walked in this morning, he had a smile on his face, ear to ear, and he goes, ‘What’s up coach? You sleep well?’ And as soon as I know he’s in that frame of mind, I knew he was going to be good tonight.”

Jim McBride can be reached at james.mcbride@globe.com. Follow him @globejimmcbride.