*Photo from the Boston Globe*
Boston leads series 3-1
These guys just have Toronto's number. James van Riemsdyk scored, Brad Marchand had a goal and an assist, and the Boston Bruins defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs with a 3-1 victory Saturday night in Toronto.
Winning two straight road games has put the Bruins one win away from knocking out the Maple Leafs in the first round for the 4th time in 11 years. A big reason why has been Marchand, who scored his 56th playoff goal to become the new Bruins leader in playoff goals, passing Cam Neely.
Bruins alternate captain David Pastrnak said of Marchand that "He creates so much for our team, not only the production that is coming right now last couple games for him, but he’s all over the ice. He’s killing penalties for us, he’s playing big minutes. He’s our captain and he definitely led us the right way the last two games, and it’s easy to follow when your captain is doing that."
The only goal of the first period came from the Bruins. It was van Riemsdyk who did so, scoring his first goal of the playoffs with an assist from Mason Lohrei to give the Bruins a 1-0 lead. With the Bruins on the power play 8:20 into the second period, Marchand scored his 3rd goal of the playoffs to double the lead to 2-0.
Later in the second, the Bruins struck for what ended up being the last time. Pastrnak found the back of the net with 42 seconds left in the period, assisted by Marchand and Pavel Zacha to make it 3-0. Mitch Marner ended the shutout bid when he scored 5:43 into the 3rd period for the Maple Leafs, making it a 3-1 game.
Marchand said after the game that "We kind of saw in the third there, they had a few plays they created out of nothing and they have that ability to do that and take over a game. Some of it is because we are doing the right things and some of it is luck. We have a big job ahead of us next game and we need to be prepared to do it again."
Drawing his second straight start and 3rd of the series in goal for the Bruins was Jeremy Swayman, who remained undefeated against the Maple Leafs this season. Swayman stopped all but one of the 25 shots he saw, good for a strong .960 save percentage.
Ilya Samsonov got the start for the Maple Leafs for the 4th game in a row and got hit by the Bruins once again. He allowed 3 goals on 17 shots before getting pulled after the second period. Joseph Woll came on for the 3rd and made 5 saves.
Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly said of the loss that "I think we have to look to be better, we’ve got areas to clean up. I think more things going towards their net. I thought we turned down some shots. When we did get offensive-zone time and did get things towards their net, there was some stuff happening but not nearly enough. Neutral zone, they did a good job of clogging it up."
The series shifts back to Boston for game 5, set for Tuesday night. The Bruins will try to knock out the Maple Leafs and advance to the second round while Toronto needs to win to force a game 6 back in Canada.
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