The Toronto Maple Leafs lost their second game in a row, falling to the Boston Bruins 3-1 on Saturday (April 27) at Scotiabank Arena.
The Bruins got goals from James van Riemsdyk, Brad Marchand, and David Pastrnak to take a 3-0 lead into the second intermission.
Marchand’s goal saw him surpass Cam Neely (55) for the most playoff goals in Bruins history. His goal also allowed him to join Ray Bourque (46) as the second player in Bruins history with 40 multi-point games in the playoffs.
The Maple Leafs and their faithful continue to be quite upset that Marchand is averaging two points per game in this series and leading the Eastern Conference in scoring, that his fingerprints are all over both sides of the special-teams battle they’re losing, and that this ninja of hockey’s dark arts has drawn two key penalties while taking none of his own.
In the third period, the Maple Leafs tried to claw their way back into the contest when Mitch Marner scored with a little over five minutes left in the third period. But that was as close as they would get as the Bruins held on for the 3-1 victory.
Jeremy Swaymen stopped 22 of 23 shots in the victory.
Nylander Returns
After a long period of conjecture and speculation, William Nylander returned to the Maple Leafs lineup. Adding Nylander back into the lineup is huge. He will bring much-needed help to the struggling power play, especially with zone entries. He is hands-down the best player on this team at gaining the zone with the puck. He can weave in and out of the opposition and take the zone before passing it around to allow his teammates to set up.
It was the hope of the Maple Leafs and their faithful that Nylander would also add another scoring option to the third line. The line combination of Calle Jarnkrok, Pontus Holmberg, and Nick Robertson has been good but was used more as a checking line than a scoring line. With the second line of John Tavares, Matthew Knies, and Mitch Marner not playing as well as they should, adding Nylander to this third line should help the Maple Leafs get more chances offensively. He might also have to step up and replace Auston Matthews if he’s not good to go for Game 5 as he was ruled out of the game when the third period began.
Game 5 will be on Monday, April 29, at TD Garden in Boston.