It's going to take some time for the pain to completely subside for the Boston Bruins following their meltdown in the first round of the 2023 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs against the Florida Panthers. Bruins forward David Pastrnak perfectly encapsulates the feeling of losing the way they did to the Panthers in just three words.

“It f*****g sucks,” David Pastrnak said about the bitter series loss to the Panthers (h/t Scott McLaughlin).

At this point, the Bruins' demise and the background to their epic collapse at the hands of the Panthers have been talked and written about a lot. David Pastrnak and the Bruins had a historic regular season, as they came up with a 65-12-5 record to easily capture the Presidents' Trophy. They were expected to handily take care of business in the first round against the Panthers, and it looked as though that was the case when they won three of the first four games of the series. However, what appeared to be a guaranteed series win turned out to be an eventual nightmare for the Bruins, as they lost all of the next three games, which culminated in a brutal 4-3 overtime loss in Game 7 at TD Garden last Sunday.

It's back to the drawing board for the Bruins, whose early exit made the path to the Stanley Cup Finals seemingly easier for the remaining teams in contention in the Eastern Conference bracket of the playoffs.

David Pastrnak led the Bruins in the 2022-23 NHL regular season in goals (61) and assists (52) for 113 points and also had five goals in the playoffs.