SUNRISE, Fla. — The Bruins showed up in south Florida itching for a fight. The Florida Panthers, having just hung their Stanley Cup banner in the Amerant Bank Arena rafters, were intent on playing hockey, albeit their own irritating, maddening variety of it.

In the end, the B’s did not get their pound of flesh and the Panthers tuned them up on the scoreboard, scoring four first-period goals on Joonas Korpisalo and cruising to a 6-4 victory. It was not as close as the score might indicate.

The Bruins had re-jiggered their roster with some beef in the offseason so that they could create the kind of grinding forecheck that led the Panthers to the Cup. But it’s tough to forecheck when you’re playing most of the game on your heels. Much of the game looked all too familiar, with the B’s unable to make clean breakouts and Sam Bennett getting away with infractions most of the night.

The Bruins wanted to make a statement in the first period but, with the Panthers declining for the most part to engage, the only statement that the visitors made was that their anger from last seasons’ series was keeping them from playing any semblance of good hockey.

It started early with Trent Frederic yapping in Matthew Tkachuk’s ear and the Florida agitator skating away. Frederic later tried to give Tkachuk no option but Bennett came flying in to Tkachuk’s defense.

Somehow, Frederic was the only player who got a penalty. While Brad Marchand had said earlier in the day that he held no animosity toward Bennett, who concussed him with a cheap shot in the playoffs last spring, the focus of the B’s ire seemed to be focused on Tkachuk, who fought David Pastrnak last spring and took a couple of cheap shots himself on the Bruin superstar. Bennett renew his villainous status later in the game.

Tkachuk kept his gloves on, even when Pastrnak got in his face after the second Frederic to-do.

But the Panthers were already well on their way at that point. They dominated territorially and scored a pair of goals 1:04 apart. Korpisalo had been under a barrage of pucks and made some good saves early, but the first goal was not a good one. He could not control a rebound of a long Evan Rodrigues shot and Bennett swooped in to get the tap-in at 6:27. Before the Panther fans got back in their seats, Eetu Luostarinen cleaned up a rebound of a Anton Lundell shot and it was 2-0.

New Bruin Nikita Zadorov wanted to get a piece of Tkachuk as well and was called for cross checking.

But on the penalty kill, an Andrew Peeke clear-in took a fortuitous bounce right to Elias Lindholm, who dished it to Pavel Zacha on the left wing and he beat Sergei Bobrovsky for a shorthanded goal.

Then it looked like the B’s were in business when former Bruin A.J. Greer, who had fought Mark Kastelic earlier, took a hooking penalty. But the Panthers answered with a shorty of their own. With Charlie McAvoy on his hip on is off wing, Sam Reinhart somehow got a shot off that beat Korpisalo under the bar.

Then a minute later, with just 26 seconds left in the period, Greer’s shot was blocked in front, but Bennett was there to beat Korpisalo and give the Panthers a commanding lead three-goal lead.

The only thing that was working for the B’s was their penalty killing and it nearly led to another shorthanded goal early in the second when Marchand and Charlie Coyle had a 2-on-1 but, after getting Bobrovsky out of the net, Coyle could not get the angle to get it into the empty net.

This was not going to be the Bruins’ night. The Panthers took a 5-1 lead at 9:12 when Brandon Carlo turned the puck over at the Florida blue line to Uvis Balinskas. He got it up to another Bruin castaway, Jesper Boqvist, who took it deep and fed Jonah Gadjovich for the easy goal.

The Panthers were having a good time. Soon, a full-throated “We Want Swayman” chant. That wasn’t going to happen, with the B’s No. 1 goalie having missed all of training camp.

The B’s did get one back when McAvoy followed up a John Beecher shot to make it a 5-2 at 12:32.

But the self-destruction continued. Max Jones was lucky he didn’t get the gate in a stick tussle with Evan Rodrigues. Attempting to slash Rodrigues’ stick, he hit the linesman’s arm. The refs took mercy on Jones and gave him just a two-minute penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct.

The Panthers pushed it to a four-goal lead at 6:36 of the third on a goal that ignited more Bruin fury. After Rodrigues beat Korpisalo cleanly on a high slot shot, Bennett steamrolled Korpisalo. Mason Lohrei started jamming his stick in Bennett’s gut and a melee ensued. Frederic again tried to get at Tkachuk but the Panther was able to use the linesmen as his bodyguards.

Frederic scored in garbage time and then Pastrnak scored a deflected power-play goal, but the game had been decided by then.