Lohrei showed his slick skill set on ice
SUNriSE, fla. — Mason lohrei saw nothing but sad faces.
As the bruins rookie glided into celly mode following his first career playoff goal in monday’s 5-1 win over the Panthers, he looked through the glass with a wide smile but saw only frowns looking back at Amerant bank Arena.
“i was pumped when i scored, and then we’re on the road, so no one else is pumped,” Lohrei said with a light laugh.
he wasn’t alone for long, however, as he was mobbed by his teammates for what turned out to be the winning goal.
the play started with a nice forecheck by Morgan Geekie, who hammered Gustav
Forsling, forcing the florida defender to cough up the puck up to Pavel Zacha, who dished it to Parker Wotherspoon at the blue line. wotherspoon softly fed to Lohrei, who had pinched in (with Zacha filling his spot at the point). Lohrei then sent a wicked wrister under the crossbar on sergei bobrovsky’s short side.
“Spoons made a great play. Poised the blue line. Got it down to me,” said Lohrei. “i had some space, got my head up. Pasta was on the back door, and i think that kind of made the goalie go down a little. So i just took that space up top.”
it was the latest highlight in a season of big moments for Lohrei, who improved during every callup from Providence and is playing with more and more confidence with every shift.
“i just think that the way he’s handled the Stanley cup playoffs, the emotion of it, the intensity of it, i think it has propelled him,” coach Jim Montgomery said tuesday morning. “he’s an extremely competitive player. it may not show in the physicality way he plays, but it shows with his poise with the puck.”
Welcome back
Kind of lost in the blue line news (Lohrei’s goal, brandon Carlo’s goal on the heels of welcoming a son, Crew) was the return of Derek Forbort.
A hard-nosed defender, forbort had a pair of surgeries in march, and the belief around the organization was that his season was finito.
but the veteran rehabbed quicker than his doctors anticipated (he recently quipped, “what do they know?”) and found himself back on the back line for Game 1.
“it’s a huge testament to him and his character and his perseverance that he’s back here,” said Charlie McAvoy, “and he’s been working really hard, and he’s been on the ice for a while now, but kind of starting from scratch, and we knew that if we could keep doing our job, there’d be a good chance that he’d slot in.
“he’s a tremendous defensive defenseman and here he is, and he played great last night and we’re going to rely on him moving forward.”
Take it easy
the bruins did not have an official practice tuesday, with montgomery opting to give his players a day of r&r . . . those who did skate included forwards Danton heinen, Johnny beecher, Jesper boqvist, Jakub lauko, and Patrick brown, defensemen wotherspoon, Kevin shattenkirk, and Matt Grzelcyk, and goalies linus ullmark and Michael DiPietro.