Bruins Refuse to Die But Fall to Maple Leafs Anyway

The Boston Bruins wasted a rare outpour of offense while trying to keep up with the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday night.

Playing from behind the entire night, the Bruins battled and responded with one timely goal after another. But for every answer the Bruins had, the Maple Leafs had one of their own as Boston fell 6-4 at Scotiabank Arena.

“We didn’t do a good enough job tonight,” Bruins interim coach Joe Sacco told reporters in Toronto. “We weren’t hard enough in certain areas of the game. Credit to Toronto. They played hard, especially below the tops of the circles. We knew going into the game it was going to be like that, and we just have to be harder to play against.”

With the game tied 2-2 entering the third period, Matthew Knies put the Maple Leafs ahead, stepping around Brandon Carlo like a practice pylon and sneaking a puck past Jeremy Swayman to score his second goal of the night.

David Pastrnak responded for Boston less than half a minute later as he rifled a shot from above the faceoff circles for his 14th goal of the season. It was the second time the Bruins came up with a quick response after giving up a goal moments earlier.

That, however, didn’t matter to Knies, as he scored the game-winner to complete his hat trick performance before Mitch Marner scored an empty net goal of his own.

Pastrnak did manage to pull the Bruins back to within one with less than two minutes left by scoring the team’s first goal of the season while playing with an extra attacker. But it was too late at that point, as Auston Matthews added one more empty net goal to Toronto’s tally for good measure.

“We gave up too many easy goals,” said Pastrnak. “We gave them six goals. I know two of them were empty netters, but overall, I think the goals they scored were too easy. We didn’t do much to prevent them.”

The game followed a familiar script for the Bruins early on. They had several scoring chances to start but couldn’t capitalize. Eventually, they fell behind after breaking down in the defensive zone, leaving room for Jake McCabe to put the Maple Leafs on the board at 3:29 of the first period.

Things could’ve really gotten out of hand in the second period when Knies put Toronto ahead by two after he deflected a shot from Auston Matthews past Swayman for his first goal of the night.

Fortunately for Boston, Morgan Geekie responded 12 seconds later, roofing a puck that was loose in the crease for his ninth goal of the season.

The Bruins continued to battle from there and stood their ground under the heavy pressure of Toronto’s forecheck. With just over a minute remaining in the period, Trent Frederic came up with the equalizer.

After winning an attacking zone faceoff, Frederic slid into the low slot, where he collected a feed from Charlie McAvoy and fired a quick wrist shot past the blocker of Maple Leafs goalie Joseph Woll to knot the score at 2-2.

The goal was the sixth of the season for Frederic. It was his first in 12 games. It’s a shame the Bruins didn’t make more use of it.

“It’s difficult in this league to play catch-up hockey,” Sacco said.”But it’s 2-2 going into the third. We had two mistakes that they capitalized on.”

By falling to Toronto, the Bruins have lost three straight games and four of their last five.

After going without a win on their three-game road trip, they’ll return to Boston with a record of 20-17-4, looking to get back on track Sunday night against the New York Islanders.

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