Saturday night could have ended in disaster for the Bruins. Protecting a one-goal lead against the rival Toronto Maple Leafs, Boston turned in a mostly clean, professional closeout effort in the third period… right up until one breakdown handed Auston Matthews the game-tying goal with 1:17 to go.
Suddenly, what had been a feel-good night to that point was on the verge of turning into a fourth straight loss, and the most devastating one yet. Fortunately for the Bruins, Brad Marchand had other ideas.
Halfway through the 3-on-3 overtime, the Bruins captain took a pass from David Pastrnak, was denied by Anthony Stolarz at point-blank range, but kept digging and eventually flipped in the rebound to give the Bruins a 4-3 win.
For Marchand, it was a much-needed goal, his first of the season. While a sluggish start wasn’t entirely unexpected given that the 36-year-old had three offseason surgeries and missed the beginning of training camp, no player of his caliber wants to have a season-opening goalless drought linger this long. Marchand did have five assists in nine games, including one on a Pastrnak tally earlier Saturday, but he had also been pressing at times, including on a four-minute power play in the second period that saw him force a couple passes that got picked off and cleared.
“Yeah, it is,” Marchand said when asked if the goal was a monkey off his back. “I've been through many different stretches in my career, good and bad, and you have to stay even-keel. I wasn't getting too caught up in it, but it is nice to get that one out of the way, for sure.”
The goal and win was even more important for the Bruins. With all due acknowledgments that it’s still early in the season, a four-game losing streak, capped by a blown lead to Toronto, would have left the Bruins waking up in an uncomfortable position Sunday morning. Questions about whether it’s time to be legitimately concerned about this team would have continued. Whether you believe coach Jim Montgomery’s seat is or should be hot, that chatter would have gotten louder.
“It did feel good,” Marchand said of the win. “It was nice for the group to get rewarded for playing the right way. Sometimes you do it for a period or two and it doesn't go the way you want it to, and you start switching up and get back into bad habits, and we didn't do that tonight. Even when they scored late, we just continued to play the right way and it paid off. It doesn't always, but it’s definitely nice when it does.”
Marchand highlighted two other important aspects of this win: The Bruins played the right way, and they didn’t stop playing the right way when they hit some adversity.
This was arguably the Bruins’ best 5-on-5 performance of the season. They outshot the Leafs 26-15 at 5-on-5, including 10-2 in the first period and 8-3 in the third. Their 59.9% expected goals share was their best mark of the season. Finally, the Bruins played with pace and were able to forecheck and cycle effectively, sustain offensive-zone pressure, and win the possession battle.
“The effort that we had – it all starts with effort,” Montgomery said. “You could tell right away we were skating. You could tell we were wanting to be physical. When you have effort, regardless of whatever structure that us coaches think we’re brilliant about, it overcomes everything.”
And yet, the Bruins still trailed twice. They didn’t score during that great first period. Worse, they then fell behind 1-0 just 35 seconds into the second. There have been times this season when that alone may have been enough to derail the Bruins. They got off to a great start on Thursday against Dallas, too, but took their foot off the gas, gave up an early lead, got into penalty trouble, and never found their game again.
The Bruins didn’t get derailed on Saturday, though. Johnny Beecher drew an interference penalty two minutes after that Toronto goal and the Bruins capitalized on the ensuing power play, with Marchand feeding Pastrnak to cap off some terrific puck movement.
The Leafs took the lead again midway through the second during a 4-on-4 sequence. The Bruins immediately got another chance to answer on the power play, but this time squandered away a four-minute advantage following a William Nylander double-minor high-stick on Pastrnak (a high-stick that chipped Pastrnak’s front tooth, by the way). Again, based on how this season has gone, it would have been fair to wonder if that missed opportunity was going to deflate the Bruins for good.
It didn’t. Just 14 seconds after that double-minor ended, the third line of Trent Frederic, Matt Poitras and Justin Brazeau hopped over the boards and launched a barrage on Leafs goalie Anthony Stolarz. Poitras got denied. Frederic’s rebound bid got denied. But the third time was the charm, with Brazeau pouncing on the second rebound and lifting it under the crossbar for his second goal of the season.
Thirty-six seconds later, the Bruins’ bottom six struck again, this time with the fourth line continuing its excellent start to the season. Cole Koepke led a 3-on-2 rush and fired wide, but Beecher tracked down the puck and made a terrific backhand pass right to Mark Kastelic in front for the finish.
The Bruins carried that lead into the third period and then controlled play most of the third. They couldn’t quite finish the job in regulation thanks to a frustrating sequence that saw Marchand bobble away an empty-net chance, followed by a miscommunication between Beecher and Charlie McAvoy that left the best goal-scorer in the world, Matthews, all alone in front.
This wasn’t a perfect game. The breakdowns that led to Toronto’s goals, especially the tying goal, will need to be cleaned up. But the Bruins played a strong game overall, kept responding the right way every time they hit a speed bump, and eventually came away with a needed – and deserved – two points. Now they need to build on it.
“It is,” Montgomery said when asked if it was important for the team to keep responding after Toronto goals. “But this is one game. We’ve got to carry the way we played and get better coming into Tuesday night. We're .500. We’ve got to keep building. It's early in the year. We’re not as bad as we played the previous two to three games, and we need to be better than what we played tonight. That's just the reality of the league. It's a tight league, and there's probably four teams or five teams in our division that are .500.”
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