The Boston Bruins defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-3 on Saturday night at Scotiabank Arena, extending their winning streak to six straight games.
Toronto took the night’s first lead at 3:12 of the opening period with a goal from Nick Robertson on the power play. But in their best impression of the Bruins, the Leafs relinquished the advantage just as quickly as they grabbed it.
Just 18 seconds after Robertson’s tally, Morgan Geekie knotted the score with his 11th goal of the season. Twenty seconds after that, Viktor Arvidsson put Boston in front.
As the Leafs carelessly fumbled the puck in front of their own net, all Arivdsson had to do was give it a slight poke to knock it in for his fifth goal of the year.
The Maple Leafs managed to tie the game once again at 13:03. Just as soon as the Bruins finished killing off a penalty, a defensive breakdown in front of their own net allowed Matias Macelli to find a soft spot and punch a shot underneath the blocker of Jeremy Swayman.
Boston got its first chance on the man-advantage at the start of the second period, and used it to take back the lead with Mikey Eyssimont’s fourth goal of the season.
David Pastrnak added onto the advantage at 4:41. After he collected a seam pass from Hampus Lindholm at the attacking blue line, Pastrnak barrelled into the zone and proceed to tie a defender in knots before stuffing the puck past Toronto netminder Anthony Stolarz for his eighth goal of the season and the 399th of his career.
It was then that the Leafs pulled Stolarz from the game in favor of Dennis Hildeby.
Overall, the Bruins firmly controlled the game at five-on-five. It was in shorthanded situations, however, where they ran into trouble. Boston surrendered three goals while on the penalty kill, including one to John Tavares that made the score 4-3 with 3:09 left before the second intermission.
Even with it only being a regular season matchup in early November, the intensity of the game rose to that of some of the classic playoff battles between the Bruins and Leafs.
Back and forth, they traded scoring chances, as well as punches after every whistle. It appeared that William Nylander tied the game for Toronto late in the third period, but an official review showed his shot hit off the crossbar and then the post before sliding out of the crease.
Minutes later, former Maple Leaf and ascending Bruins forward Fraser Minten delivered the dagger to his old team, scoring his third goal of the season with 3:02 left to play.
At that point, Toronto pulled its goalie and even had a two-man advantage as Boston yet another penalty. But even that wasn’t enough to put one more puck past Swayman, who finished with 30 saves on 33 shots.
The Bruins and Maple Leafs will see each other again on Tuesday at TD Garden.
This story will be updated
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