The TD Garden on Saturday evening was where game two of the Stanley Cup playoffs between the Boston Bruins and the Toronto Maple Leafs took place. Game one on Thursday saw the Leafs take the game 4-1 after Boston opened the scoring half way through the first period.
David Backes quick pass from behind the Leafs net to Charlie Coyle in front saw Coyle knock the puck past Frederik Anderson, putting the home side in the lead at 4:44.
A small altercation between Nazem Kadri and Jake Debrusk saw the two players head to their penalty boxes at 11:12 for roughing, and two minutes later they re-joined the game still 1-0.
With four minutes left of the period, a long, clearing pass from Brad Marchand in the Boston zone went down the ice to David Pastrnak. Pastrnak performed a spinning back pass, avoiding Nikita Zaitsev, and sent the puck through to Brad Marchand in space. Marchand took the puck towards the goal and faked a shot, forcing Anderson to stretch giving Marchand space under the netminder’s legs to send the puck into the goal.
The only goal in the second period came just over half way through. Just inside the Toronto zone, Jake Muzzin past to Zaitsev who surrendered the puck to William Nylander. Nylander knocked the puck back towards the Toronto goal, and, under pressure from Danton Heinen, lost the puck against the side of his own goal. Anderson had already moved over to cover the other post, expecting the two players to come out that side of the net, but Nylander managed to pick up the now lose puck on the end of his stick and slip it around the now unguarded post, pushing the Bruins to 3-0.
Tory Krug left the game with an undisclosed injury during the second period, and during the third period Connor Clifton also left the game, leaving the Bruins two defenders down.
With barely ten minutes left in the game, the Maple Leafs were attacking hard, with Nylander heading behind the Bruins goal. His long pass out to Travis Dermott out at the blue line, Dermott had plenty of space to wind up a huge strike, unleashing a blast towards the goal. Kadri, making a screen in front of Rask got his stick to the puck, deflecting it on a new trajectory, finally finding the back of the Bruins goal, making the score 3-1.
A few minutes later though, Kadri cross checked Jake DeBrusk picking up a game misconduct and leaving the ice, the penalty being sat by Frederik Gauthier. This sent the Bruins on the attack once more, keeping the puck within the Toronto zone. Matt Grzelcyk passed to Marchand, who shot the puck in to the traffic in front of Anderson. The puck deflected off Morgan Rielly’s stick and was heading wide across the zone, but Mitchell Marner’s knee put it back on track towards the goal. Anderson got his leg in front of it, and stopped it crossing the line but Patrice Bergeron was there to pick up the rebound and flick it over the netminder, now on his stomach on the ice bringing the score to 4-1.
Rask only allowed one goal from the thirty one shots he faced, with Anderson letting slip four goals from forty one shots. “Well it was entertaining, I guess, but you know I just try to stay focused on the puck,” said Rask. “You know next shot, that’s it. I can’t just really be a spectator, but you know it was a good pace, lots of hits, hard-fought match.”
“I didn’t think we executed as well, weren’t as crisp with the puck, and that didn’t allow us to generate as much in the forecheck like we did in Game 1,” Maple Leafs forward John Tavares said.
Monday night will see the two teams meet again in Toronto at the Scotiabank Arena for game three in this best of seven series.
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