But as bad as Thomas looked on his gift to Moore, the netminder bailed out the Bruins by making his final save his best of the night to preserve a 2-1 win before 18,799 at the BankAtlantic Center.
With less than five seconds remaining, the Panthers nearly tied the game when a Derek Morris giveaway to Stephen Weiss led to Jordan Leopold getting an open look from the slot. Thomas, however, made sure Leopold’s blast hit his glove instead of the back of the net.
“You’re hoping everything goes as planned, but that isn’t always the way it works out,’’ said Thomas. “I think it bounced off a shinpad right to one of their guys, right to the open guy in the slot. I was just trying to stay with the puck as well as possible. Fortunately I was able to get a glove on it.’’
Leopold never should have gotten his opportunity. With 21 seconds remaining, Moore was sent to the box for clipping Michael Ryder. But Kamil Kreps won the defensive-zone faceoff against Patrice Bergeron. The Panthers marched up the ice, took the puck away from Morris, and allowed Leopold to rip off a high-quality shot - all that after the Bruins failed to put the puck into an empty net after Scott Clemmensen was pulled in the final minute.
“You’ve got a power play and a faceoff in their own end,’’ said coach Claude Julien. “Tonight we struggled in the faceoff circle. Our centers have to take that blame. We have to be better in the faceoff circle. Second of all, we could have been better coming back to help and support. When they get the puck, you expect your guys to react a little quicker. There’s no way that guy should be able to slide in there. There’s at least two or three mistakes in the last 20 seconds that we need to realize and get better at.’’
