Maple Leafs stay alive with 4-3 win in Game 5

In Boston Saturday night, the Maple Leafs pushed through for a 4-3 win over the Boston Bruins to stay alive in their first round series.

They now trail the Bruins by a 3-2 count.

Frederik Andersen made 42 saves to keep the Bruins at arm’s length as they stormed back I the third period to pressure the Leafs’ net to get the tying goal.

“He played unbelievable,” said Toronto center Auston Matthews, who had an assist. “Obviously, this is do-or-die for us. The pressure is on them to close out the series, and he came up for big for us, as well as a lot of other guys.”

Andreessen made 19 saves in the third period.

“We just kept saying to ourselves that we were up a goal in the third period on the road. If you would have written that up at the beginning of the game, we would take it 10 times out of 10. So we just had to stay calm. [Frederik Andersen] was our backbone. We did a great job winning some face-offs, winning some battles down the stretch, and we were able to get the job done,” the Maple Leafs’ Nazem Kadri said after the game.

Four different skaters struck for the Leafs including Tyler Bozak and James van Riemsdyk who scored in the second period after Connor Brown and Andreas Johnsson staked Toronto to a 2-0 lead in the first period.

“They were coming hard, they wanted to tie it up, and I think we might have been playing a little too much on our heels,” Brown said. “It’s important to keep going to get them and keep playing in their end. They were breaking out a little easier than we would have liked, but at the end of the day, we got a gutsy win down the stretch, and it’s a real momentum-builder.”

Noel Acciari, David Backes and Sean Kuraly scored for the Bruins who outshot the Maple Leafs 45-21 for the game.

“You’ve got to give their goaltender credit,” Boston coach Bruce Cassidy said. “Both games we’ve lost we had over 40 shots on net, probably at least 20-something chances, not all on net, but we created chances. So he was very good tonight, let’s face it. He made a lot of good saves. The ones we got weren’t cheap.”

 

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Tuukka Rask,got the start but was given the hook after yielding four goals and making only nine saves.

“I didn’t think [Rask] had it tonight,”  Cassidy said. “So we went with Anton, who’s been very good for us. And then there’s always that part that gets the rest of the team’s attention as well. So it’s both, I don’t want to quantify what percentage was each. Clearly, if I thought he was on, then he wouldn’t have got pulled. Let’s put it that way.”

Anton Khudobin relieved Rask and made eight saves.

“We still have a lot of confidence. I think the momentum is still on our side right now even though they won. We had a good pushback, and we’re going to take that pushback and hopefully have a good first five minutes up there in Toronto [in Game 6] and go from there,” Boston’s Tim Schaller said after the loss.