With five games remaining in the regular season and the playoffs beginning in 10 days, there was a playoff-type atmosphere at the TD Garden Thursday night (April 6) when the Boston Bruins hosted the Toronto Maple Leafs. In a game that showed what a tremendous second-round playoff series would look like between the two rivals, assuming both survive their first-round opponent, the Bruins were able to rally for a 2-1 overtime win on David Pastrnak’s 57th goal of the season.
It was easy to see why it would not be surprising to see either team come out of the Eastern Conference to play for the Stanley Cup as the two evenly-matched teams traded blows for over 60 minutes. Here are three takeaways from Boston’s 61st win of the 2022-23 season.
Pastrnak Makes Up for His Costly Turnover
All season long, Pastrnak has been the best Bruins offensive player, but with all the goals you get down one end, there are some bad turnovers and giveaways down the other end. In the second period, the Maple Leafs made him pay for a bad pass.
Sam Lafferty picked off a Pastrnak pass at center ice, dumped the puck in the corner of the Bruins zone and it went to Zach Ashton-Reese who made a perfect cross-ice pass to Lafferty who was wide open and buried the puck into an open net. After the turnover, Tyler Bertuzzi lost Lafferty after the dump-in and the newly acquired forward from the Chicago Blackhawks had no problem finishing.
The Bruins were given a power play 24 seconds into overtime, but failed to score. After the penalty expired, Pastrnak one-timed a pass from Dmitry Orlov by Ilya Samsonov for the game-winner. For the game, Pastrnak finished with five shots on the net, but his turnovers in the defensive zone and center ice remain a concern ahead of the postseason.
Coyle & Carlo Come up Big in the Third Period
All season long, the Bruins have been the best third-period team in the league and entered it against Toronto with a plus/minus of plus-49 and trailing 1-0 on Lafferty’s goal. They were able to tie the game and they needed every bit of Brandon Carlo’s 6-foot-6 frame to do it.
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Toronto appeared to make the safe play off the glass in clearing the puck, but Carlo was able to jump up, grab it, keep the puck along the line, and fed a pass to Charlie Coyle. The Bruins’ third-line center carried the puck toward Samsonov and beat him with a wrist shot to tie the game with 8:28 remaining. Coyle, who picked up the secondary assist on Pastrnak’s game-winner, finished with 21:08 in time on ice and once again was able to make a big play at a big time for Boston.
Swayman Kept the Bruins in the Game
The Bruins carried the better of the play in the first period, but the second period belonged to the Maple Leafs and without the effort of Jeremy Swayman, the game would have been out of reach entering the third period. He finished the game with 31 saves, but he stopped 24 of the 25 shots he faced in the final two periods.
Swayman turned back William Nylander in the first period with a nice save, then made a glove save off a Mitch Marner shot from the slot after he came off the bench and was left alone in the second period. Late in the third period, Toronto made a late push and had the puck in the Bruins’ end, but the former University of Maine netminder stood tall. His best save was when he stopped Auston Matthews with a minute left when the Maple Leafs’ sniper cut out in front of the net and was stopped by Swayman at point-blank range.
It was Swayman’s sixth consecutive win and he has a 1.48 goals-against average (GAA) and a .952 save percentage (SV%) with a pair of shutouts during his recent streak.
Quick Bruins’ Takeaways
- Over the past week, one of the Bruins’ better forwards has been Trent Frederic. After picking up two assists in the 4-3 shootout win over the St. Louis Blues on April 2, he had another strong game against Toronto. He finished with three shots on the net, two hits, and drove hard to the net with Oskar Steen on Coyle’s goal. Frederic finished with a very effective 13:51 in time on ice.
- Charlie McAvoy left the game in the second period with an upper-body injury after colliding with Patrice Bergeron, then crashing hard into the boards. Following the game, coach Jim Montgomery said that McAvoy was held out for precautionary reasons, but he is someone the Bruins can’t afford to lose ahead of the playoffs (from ‘Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy may have avoided a serious injury against Leafs, may sit weekend games,’ Boston Globe, April 7, 2023).
- After showing signs of life in the last week, the Bruins’ power play was powerless once again. They failed to score on their four opportunities and a lot of the problems that they have been having in the last two months reared their ugly head again. Bad zone entries and overpassing instead of shooting the puck on the net were the biggest issues. You have to give credit where credit is due and the Maple Leafs did a nice job at the blue line and keeping the puck to the outside when Boston got it into the zone.
The Bruins will return to the ice Saturday night (April 8) at home against the 50-win New Jersey Devils and will do it on a four-game winning streak, looking for their 62nd win. The only thing left to play for is chasing the regular season wins and points records, but with the McAvoy injury against Toronto, they also would like to get through that game and the final three as healthy as possible before the playoffs begin.
