Paul Maurice lit into Florida Panthers in Game 5 loss to Bruins. Will it spark the team?

Paul Maurice wasn’t happy with the Florida Panthers’ start Tuesday. They were playing from behind instead of going for the kill in their first opportunity to knock out the Boston Bruins in their second-round series of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

So during a television timeout early in the second period, the coach let them know as much — although the exact conversation would require some to cover their ears.

“I don’t know the exact words of the message,” Maurice said. “I wasn’t mad at them. I understood what they were going through. I just thought they needed some profanity in their life — and I brought some. I don’t excel at a lot of things in life, but [expletive], I’m good at that.”

For a moment, the Panthers responded to their coach’s message, with Sam Reinhart scoring the game-tying goal seconds later once play resumed.

But Florida couldn’t muster anything else after that in a 2-1 loss to the Bruins in Game 5 of their best-of-7 second-round series.

Now, the Panthers will make their way back to Boston for their second chance to close out this series and advance to the Eastern Conference final. Florida leads the series 3-2, with Game 6 on Friday at Boston’s TD Garden. A winner-take-all Game 7, if necessary, would be Sunday in Sunrise.

Now, the Panthers will have to see if they can heed their coach’s challenge. His message to them, when you weave through the profanity, is a rather simple one.

“Just up the intensity a little bit,” Reinhart said. “Be quicker to support. Want that puck a little more. See if we can turn our game around a little bit.”

Added Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov: “He was just trying to get the point through to us that we’ve got to play harder. We’ve got to enjoy it. We’ve got to play our game. Before that, we were kind of just sitting back and just watching what was happening. He just wanted to get the point through.”

And it was a message Florida needed to hear. The Panthers looked little like the team that had won three consecutive games against the Bruins entering Tuesday. Florida struggled to find its footing most of the night against a desperate Boston team playing with its season on the line.

The Bruins outshot the Panthers 13-4 in the first period before Florida began to generate some momentum in the second and third periods.

But just like in their Game 1 loss, the Panthers’ high volume of shots didn’t challenge Bruins goaltender Jeremy Swayman. Yes, they had 29 shots on goal and 65 total shot attempts, but only eight of those 65 attempts were high-danger chances, according to the advanced hockey statistics website Natural Stat Trick. Boston blocked 20 shot attempts. Another 13 opportunities missed the net altogether.

“They came out and were on pucks quicker than we were,” Reinhart said. “We were able to find our game in the second, but couldn’t convert on some of our chances.”

It’s the second consecutive time this postseason Florida failed to clinch a series on its first opportunity. Florida lost Game 4 to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round after taking a 3-0 series lead before ultimately winning the matchup in five games. In both games, a sluggish first period set the pace for the remainder of the game.

“They came out a little better than us,” Panthers forward Kevin Stenlund said, “and got the momentum.”

Florida’s goal now is to make sure that momentum was contained to that one game. The Panthers still control the series and have two opportunities left to close things out.

“You play a seven-game series for a reason,” Reinhart said. “It’s not always going to go your way. You try and learn from it. There are some things we can do a little bit better and we’re gonna learn from it.”