“I was trying to get to the net and just ended up in the goalie,” Lauko said of the play. “Like I don’t know — I felt that the defenseman was holding me and kind of pushing me inside. So I don’t know, what am I supposed to do to avoid it?”

To further twist the knife, Brandon Montour scored on the resulting power play — giving Florida a 4-0 lead just 3:09 into the final period of play. 

The Panthers pounced on Boston’s PK throughout the night — cashing in on four of their six power-play bids. 

“I mean, we gotta kill it,” Jake DeBrusk said when asked about the tough call against Lauko. “I think that’s something that you can’t focus on. You could be frustrated with the call or mad about anything honestly on the ice. You still have to do your job and try to keep the game tight at that point.

“But I think when you get enough opportunities, they’re top players — no matter what team they’re on —  they’re all very good, they’ve played together now for a couple of years. They’re gonna get more looks, they’re gonna get more touches and that’s something that we need to avoid.”

The Bruins have not only labored on the power play in this series against Florida, but they’ve also struggled to even get on the man advantage. 

Boston is 0-for-7 on the power play in this series, while the Panthers have been on the power play 15 times — cashing in on five of those opportunities. 

“You know what, we weren’t very good for the first two periods,” Jim Montgomery said of the discrepancies in the calls so far in this series. “I can’t really say that we earned any more power plays. In the second period, I thought they were coming. 

“And unfortunately, we got the high stick in a stick battle, fighting for a puck. And that really changed the game. I thought in the third period that we started to get juice because our crowd got us into it.”