In Toronto, the Maple Leafs got big game efforts from Auston Matthews and John Tavares who each struck for two goals on Saturday night in a 5-2 win over the Boston 
Bruins.
“We are in the middle of a pretty long homestand (fourth of five games), and it’s been crucial to make good on being at home and that’s been great for us,” Tavares said. “There was great energy in the building tonight, a good rivalry, and so we did a lot of good things today and just want to keep it going.”
Jack Campbell made 42 saves for the Leafs in their fifth straight win.
“We need those guys to produce, and they have been, and it’s no coincidence it’s been the start of a roll as a team since that’s happened, but I really thought it was a great team effort here tonight all the way through,” Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe said. “We had just terrific efforts from each line, our defense, our goaltending and our special teams. This was a big win here tonight, but just like we needed to block out the noise when things were not going well, it’s equally important to block out the noise now.”
Toronto improved to 7-4-1.
“Just sticking with it honestly,” Matthews said. “The highs can get real high here and the lows can get real low, and I think sometimes you just have to take a step back and take a breath. A couple weeks ago we weren’t as a team playing to the level we were happy with, and I think it’s kind of come full circle. Pucks are starting to go in and we are playing much more consistently throughout our lineup.”
Taylor Hall and David Pastrnak were the Bruins strikes.
Mitchell Marner had a single marker for the Maple Leafs; he scored into an epty net with less than a minute to go on the clock for the 5-2 final.
Boston dropped to 5-4-0.
“We’ve got to create our identity where we are hard to play against for 60 minutes, not 30, 20, 40, whatever it is, it has to be 60 and we weren’t,” Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy said. “When you get into their type of game where there’s a little bit more transition, and for us, we need to play more of a puck possession in the offensive zone. There were some easy goals tonight for them — that they worked for, don’t get me wrong — but we were soft on pucks.”
Linus Ullmark made 31 saves in the Boston loss.
“Ullmark played well, he did his job, but we didn’t do a good enough job in front of him,” Hall said. “He’s not a scrambling goalie, he’s very sound technically, but the way we played in our own end forced him to really move around in the net, and when that’s happening, we’re not doing our job in front of him.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.