Brad Marchand entered Saturday night as Public Enemy No. 1 in Toronto for a rather silly reason. The Maple Leafs and their fans were upset with him over the play Timothy Liljegren got injured on back on Nov. 2, a play that was no more than a two-minute minor for tripping, despite an unfortunate result.
Well, now they have a better reason to hate him. Marchand scored the game-winning goal with 7.2 seconds left in overtime to lift the Bruins to a thrilling 4-3 win over their division rivals on Hockey Night in Canada.
The goal was a big one for Marchand, not just because it won Boston the game or gave him bragging rights over Toronto. It was also his first goal in nine games and first point in six, ending a rare prolonged scoring drought.
Marchand's line, which also featured Charlie Coyle and Danton Heinen, had an up-and-down night, but Marchand himself was certainly more active than he's been, landing a season-high eight shots on goal. As for any pregame talk about retribution, there was none. No one from the Leafs challenged him to a fight or even landed a hard hit on him.
The Bruins needed more from their top players in the wake of their recent three-game losing streak. In the last two games, they've gotten it. Jim Montgomery's decision to move Marchand away from David Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha seems to have sparked all parties.
The new top line of Pastrnak, Zacha and Jake DeBrusk was great for a second straight game, as they were on the ice for the Bruins' first two goals of the night. Pastrnak sniped the top corner off the rush on the first. On the second, he retrieved a rebound off a DeBrusk shot and fed a pinching Kevin Shattenkirk, who finished with a nifty backhand past Joseph Woll. During that line's shifts the last two games, the Bruins have outshot their opponents 18-8 and outscored them 3-0.
Those two goals put the Bruins up 2-0, but the Maple Leafs came storming back and tied the game early in the third period. Trent Frederic, who helped spark the Bruins with a fight on Thursday, provided a spark again on Saturday, putting Boston back in the lead when he banged home a rebound off a Derek Forbort shot with 6:50 left in the game.
That would not hold up as the winner, though, because a lingering issue reared its ugly head again. For the third time this season, the Bruins surrendered a game-tying goal in the final 15 seconds of regulation, with Auston Matthews burying a one-time feed from Mitch Marner with five seconds remaining to send the game to overtime.
Unlike the last two times it happened – an overtime loss to the Ducks on Oct. 26 and an overtime loss to the Lightning on Nov. 20 – the Bruins bounced back in overtime and still got the two points this time.
William Nylander lost an edge while trying to cut inside Marchand in the neutral zone, springing Pastrnak on a breakaway with time winding down in OT. Pastrnak's attempt was stopped by Woll, but he collected his own rebound at the side of the net and flipped it back to the front. That's where Marchand was waiting to glove it down and bury his shot before Woll could recover.
"I saw him [Marchand] stop at the net, so I just tried to get it as quick as possible," Pastrnak said. "Great handle by him. So happy for him, and big goal for him."
The Bruins shouldn't be happy that the game ended up in overtime in the first place, and there is clearly still work to do when it comes to defending extra-attacker situation. But Marchand winning this one was fitting, and Montgomery made sure to point out afterwards that he was happy with the vast majority of his team's game.
"This was the best game we've played in a while, maybe two weeks," he said. "…How hard we were to play against, time and space, protecting the middle of the ice."
