At the TD Garden this year, the B's posted a record of 23-10-7 (not including Saturday), a very modest record on home ice. They would have loved nothing more than to send the Boston faithful home happy one last time this year, and they had an excellent chance to do just that.
On Saturday night, the Bruins played host to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
What an awful disaster that has gone on north of the border this season. But shockingly enough, the Maple Leafs own two victories over the Black and Gold this year--one of them being a 6-1 shellacking up in Toronto. It was just tough to reminiscence about this team because these two teams last met back in December. With a team that has as many skilled players as the Maple Leafs, they had no problem attempting to play spoiler against the Bruins.
Max Talbot was back in the lineup for Boston as Gregory Campbell was the healthy scratch. Tuukka Rask got his 67th appearance between the pipes.
The first period was scoreless, but what we took from the opening 20 minutes is that the Bruins were not productive on the power play. However, the B's were the dominant team during five-on-five play. Boston out-shot Toronto 19-6 over the course of the first period.
In the second frame, the Leafs were forced to play defense early...and that is something that they never were able to do. Patrice Bergeron opened the scoring just 19 seconds into the second period. From there, Toronto seemed to stand up to the Bruins from a physical standpoint. The Maple Leafs worked their way back into it by tying the game on the stick of James van Riemsdyk. Similar to how Rask was dominant in period one, Leafs netminder James Reimer was the man in period two as he stopped all 12 shots he face.
The third period was a stalemate, even though the B's racked up 47 shots on goal in regulation. This game eventually went into overtime and then into a shootout. Bergeron ended up coming through yet again by scoring the only goal in the shootout while Rask stopped all three Leafs. Boston defeated Toronto by a final score of 2-1 and improve its winning streak to five games.
The Ottawa Senators also played simultaneously with the B's on this night as well. The Sens were three points behind Boston for the second wild card spot. They knocked off the Washington Capitals in overtime, so the lead is still three points for the Bruins in the Atlantic Division.
The Bruins will begin a three-game road trip to end the season next week, starting on Wednesday when they take on those very same Capitals.
Gold Star: Patrice Bergeron...He totaled six shots on net. At least one of them ended up going in the net. In all seriousness, this guy in money. We should expect nothing less.
Black Star: Torey Krug...Not a very effective game for the young blue liner. The size of the Leafs forwards did not bode well for him when it came time to hit.
Game Seventy-Nine Box Score
List of Boston Bruins Team Awards
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