A little old-time hockey broke out at the Garden, at least what passes for it these days, and the Bruins managed to stretch their winning streak to seven games with their second straight win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday.
In a game filled with hard feelings and questionable hits, David Pastrnak had a three-point night (two goals, including No. 400, and an assist) to lift the B’s to a 5-3 win over the Leafs.
When an undermanned Bruins faced the Leafs on Saturday, the Leafs were riding a three-game win streak. Now they’re losers of three straight, with a pair of L’s to the B’s in four days.
“It was huge. Huge,” said coach Marco Sturm. “Playing a Toronto team, the Maple Leafs rivalry, Hockey Night in Canada, in Toronto, Hall of Fame weekend, not having our full lineup. then coming back here and it was ‘can we do it again?’ There’s a lot of things going on in those two games. I’m pretty proud of my guys, just the way they handled things, how they played, structure and details, sticking with it. Yeah, so winning back-to-back games against Toronto, that’s…that’s pretty cool.”
Pastrnak had notched his 400th goal early in the second period on a beautiful breakaway goal early in the second to give the B’s a 4-1 lead, igniting the entire Bruin bench to congratulate him on the ice.
“At that point, I didn’t make much of it, but it really hit me when the guys came over,” said Pastrnak. “It was awesome to top it off with a win. It was great.”
For a while, it looked like that milestone goal would put the nail in the Leafs’ coffin for the night, but there was a whole lot of nastiness to come.
The B’s had that 4-1 lead late in the second period but, after a Bobby McMann power-play goal late in the second period, Oliver Ekman-Larson’s seeing-eye shot beat Jeremy Swayman at 3:32 of the third to pull the Leafs to within a goal.
Toronto came out for the third playing with an edge that had been missing early in the game after taking exception to a Nikita Zadorov hit that knocked Auston Matthews out of the game, maybe, in the second period. On the play, Zadorov knocked Matthews into the boards from a little bit of distance. Though it appeared that Matthews may have hurt his shoulder on the play, he went back at Zadorov to give him a shove and his leg seemed to buckle a bit. Coach Craig Berube said Matthews had a lower body injury.
“I think it’s a penalty, personally, but I’m not the referee” said Berube. “I don’t like it. I don’t like the hit. He’s in a vulnerable position. So, whatever, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Zadorov, who knocked Scott Laughton out of the Leafs’ lineup with a brutal but clean hit on Saturday, didn’t think he hit Matthews with a lot of force.
“It was just a normal play. I didn’t really hit him. I hit him with my right shoulder. Ninety-nine percent of my hits are with my right shoulder,” said Zadorov. “I’m not sure when he got hurt, (if it was when) he went after me again. I kind of hit him. Or when I cleared the puck, I hit him with the puck. I’m not going to speculate on that. I thought it was just routine. I didn’t want to hurt him, I just wanted to like provide him to take the middle and I just stood there. If you can see, I hit him with my chest. There was no intention to hurt him.”
Whether it was the shoulder or chest, or whether it happened on the hit or in the aftermath, the Leafs’ star was out of the game. And Toronto wanted to make some kind of statement.
It got the better of them when 5-10 Max Domi tried to get the 6-7 Zadorov to fight after Domi had bumped Swayman. Zadorov wisely kept his gloves on as Domi flailed away. Domi got called for a roughing minor.
“He is my ex-teammate (with the London Knights). We won a championship in the OHL. I’m not going to fight my friend,” said Zadorov. “I see what he was doing and the player he is. He and his Dad (Tie), they’ve been great to me so I have respect for Max to go after me for my style and what I did to his teammates, I guess. But, like I told Max, he’s way shorter than me and smaller than me. It’s a lose-lose situation for me if I fight him. There was no point in me fighting him.”
The B’s cashed in with their third PP goal. Mark Kastelic made a pretty pass to Pastrnak, who had notched the milestone goal earlier in the game, scored No. 401 over goalie Dennis Hildeby to push the lead to 5-3.
“That felt good. I let him know, for sure,” cracked Zadorov.
That didn’t end the nasty stuff. With 7:46 left in the third, Sammy Blais hit McAvoy with what could have been a dangerous knee-on-knee hit, setting off another another melee with Zadorov jumping on the pile. When the smoke cleared, the teams skated four aside but nothing came of it. Sturm wasn’t wild about Zadorov taking a penalty there, even if it just evened up the sides.
“I’ll probably talk to him about that,” said Sturm.
The Leafs couldn’t get much going on the 4-on-4, but the B’s weren’t out of the woods. Kastelic took a cross checking penalty when he nailed Simon Benoit to the side of the head with 5:09. But the B’s were able to kill it off and skate to the victory.
For a time, it looked like this could be a laugher.
The Bruins took a 3-1 lead in the first period, thanks in great part to the Leafs taking three penalties in the first eight minutes of the game. Goals were scored on all three of them, but only two for the Bruins. Pavel Zacha (5) started off the scoring before Charlie McAvoy coughed up the puck to Steven Lorentz for a shorthanded goal past Swayman (27 saves).
The B’s, however, would get it right back. Hampus Lindholm, using a Marat Khusnutdinov screen, beat Anthony Stolarz with a snap shot from well above the left circle at 9:32. It was Lindholm’s first goal since Nov. 7 of last year, five days before he suffered a season-ending knee injury.
The B’s outshot the Leafs, 10-6, in the first and pushed the lead to two goals at 17:23 on a dominant shift that produced a soft goal from Stolarz. The B’s, in the midst of a line change, created multiple turnovers inside the Toronto zone until Alex Steeves, who’d been in the Leafs’ organization for four years before signing with the B’s in last summer, found a sizable hole between Stolarz’ pads from the left circle for his first goal as a Bruin.
Stolarz would not see the second period, as he was pulled for the second time in as many games against the B’s. He was yanked for Hildeby.
But Hildeby’s teammates did him no favors early, allowing a breakaway to the wrong player in the first minute on a pretty play – Pastrnak. McAvoy sent the puck up the middle of the ice and Morgan Geekie made a beautiful tip pass to spring Pastrnak. Pastrnak deked Hildeby out of his skates and neatly tucked in his 400th career goal behind him, bringing his Black and Gold well-wishers onto the ice.
Boston Bruins defenseman Hampus Lindholm (27) celebrates his goal with teammates Michael Eyssimont (81) and Marat Khusnutdinov on Tuesday at the TD Garden. (Staff Photo By Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)
As if they sensed they were on the verge of being embarrassed, the Leafs finally started to compete. They spent the better part of the next 10 minutes in the Bruins zone but they could not beat Swayman to get any closer.
A Bruin power play midway through the period stemmed the tide a bit, even though they would eventually give it away with a too-many-men penalty of their own.
But the B’s penchant for penalties allowed the Leafs to hang around later in the second. First, Jeffrey Viel took an offensive zone crosschecking penalty and then, 1:12 later, Kastelic was called for high-sticking.
The B’s did a good job of killing off the 48-second 5-on-3, but the Leafs dinged them on the 5-on-4 with Bobby McMann scoring on a backhander from in tight with 1:02 left in the second.
With the momentum and a little bit of anger, the Leafs kept pushing in the third. But the B’s pushed back.
“Obviously, they want to send a message. They want to get everyone going, like every other team,” said Sturm. “But the nice thing about our team right now, if one says something from the other team, we have the whole bench standing up.”
Toronto Maple Leafs center Max Domi (11) takes down Boston Bruins defenseman Nikita Zadorov in an attempted fight during the third period. (Staff Photo By Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)
If the Leafs didn’t like the hit, they took a liberty of their own at the start of the third period when McMann drilled Lindholm long after the puck was gone, creating a kerfuffle that would eventually lead to a Bruin power play.
They didn’t convert and the Leafs were able to inch closer.