The Bruins never made it easy on themselves, but they did not choke on Saturday night. Not this time.

In a heart-stopping Game 7, David Pastrnak swooped in on Hampus Lindholm’s perfect dump-in in the right corner, cut to the net and beat Ilya Samsonov with a backhander at 1:54 of overtime, lifting the B’s to a 2-1 victory and a second round date with the Florida Panthers. Lindholm had tied the game in the third period.

Coach Jim Montgomery asked for his star to step up after Game 6. And Pastrnak delivered.

So did Jeremy Swayman. He made 30 saves to win his first career playoff series.

The game was as the dramatic as they come. There was even drama before the game.

The Leafs had played three games at the start of the series without William Nylander and Games 5 and 6 without Auston Matthews. Both stars were in the lineup for Game 7, but the hockey gods threw one more curveball at them. Goalie Joseph Woll, who had beaten the B’s in Games 5 and 6, was a surprise late scratch with an injury that he most likely suffered trying to stop Morgan Geekie’s goal with less than a second to play in Game 6. And in went Ilya Samsonov, who had gotten pulled from Game 4.

B’s fans were also ready to go after Patrice Bergeron, who scored the tying and overtime winner in the dramatic Game 7 win in 2013, was introduced as the banner captain, nearly blowing the roof off the Garden.

It seemed like the B’s had the good juju going.

And the B’s tested Samsonov early, holding a 10-4 shot advantage at one point. The B’s played a much better first period than they had in Games 5 and 6, though that would not have been hard.

Samsonov appeared to see most of the shots, many of which hit him in the chest. The B’s held an 11-8 shot advantage in the period, four off the stick of Lindholm, but there were no bad rebounds from the netminder.

Swayman had to make perhaps the best save of the period when he snared Nylander’s good chance off a 2-on-1.

Swayman would need to be on his game in the second period because the Leafs were the better team in the middle stanza, outshooting the B’s 12-7 despite the B’s getting two power plays to the Leafs’ one.

Early in the second period, both teams got PP opportunities, with the B’s getting the first one when Timothy Liljegren tripped James van Riemsdyk. But the B’s did nothing with it. In fact, Swayman very nearly cost the team when he left the puck behind the net and Mitch Marner grabbed it, but he couldn’t get a good chance on it.

Once that was done, Charlie Coyle crosschecked Max Domi and the Leafs buzzed the Boston zone but Swayman held his ground and kept it scoreless.

David Pastrnak drew a hooking penalty on Matthew Knies but, again, they could not capitalize. After Charlie McAvoy passed up on a shot, Connor Dewar broke out on shorthanded partial break but Swayman kept the door shut.

The game went into the third period 0-0 and the once raucous building grew increasingly tense.

And at 9:01, the Leafs took the first lead of the game. Wheeling in the left corner with the puck, Brandon Carlo toe-picked and the puck went to Matthews. With the B’s blowing the zone, Matthews found Nylander cutting down the wing and he buried it past Swayman.

But at 10:22, the B’s tied it up. The third line of James van Riemsdyk, Trent Frederic and Justin Brazeau stormed the zone. After Brazeau’s shot went just over the net, van Riemsdyk fed Lindholm in the left circle and he zipped a hard wrister past Samsonov’s shortside to even it up again.

Pastrnak had a great chance to give the B’s the lead late in the third with Samsonov down but his long distance shot went over the net.

Nylander nearly scored a fluke goal in the final seconds of the third went he sent a pass intended for Pontus Holmberg on the backdoor, but it deflected off Parker Wotherspoon’s skate and right to the net. Swayman was locked in, however, and he pounced on it.