Boston Bruins Take Game 1 in Series Against the Maple Leafs

The Boston Bruins got series the minute they took to the ice last night against the Leafs in Game 1 of the first round playoffs. The Leafs held their own in the first period only to see the Bruins take control midway through the second and onto a 5-1 win.

The Leafs has spoken in detail earlier in the week of the importance to control the Bruins front line as they enter the second time they drew the Boston Bruins in the Playoffs. It seems they still have work to do in that area, let alone others.

Boston’s Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnal each added points for Boston as they beat the Leafs in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference playoffs. Game 2 is scheduled for this Saturday at TD Garden before heading to Toronto for two games before returning to Boston.

For Mike Babcock, Coach of the Leafs, and coached Marchand and Bergeron on the 2016 Team Canada team that won the World Cup of Hockey, he stated,

“We’ve got to be better, obviously. Give them credit, they were good. We weren’t good enough.”

David Pastrnal and Brad Marchand both scored goals and earned assists in last night’s game. Patrice Bergeron had a strong performance that started with the first face off. If last night is any indication of what is to come in this series it will not take much imagination to see who hockey sports betting sites will favour to win the series.

Morgan Rielly, defenceman for the Leafs, while commenting on the Bruins said,

“They played with a lot of speed. The building was rocking, they were feeling the energy.”

Also scoring for the Bruins was Sean Kuraly, David Krejci got one got, and one assist and David Backes also added one for the Bruins while Tuukka Rask has 26 saves for the night.

Toronto Maple Leafs

Toronto’s only goal came at the hands of Zach Hyman while 35 stops were made by Frederik Andersen. Game 2 will see Toronto without Kadri due to last night’s incident with Tommy Wingles and a scheduled meeting with the player safety department of the NHL

Kadri was not pleased with the lack of a call against Wingles after he elbowed Mitch Marner in the face, which led to Kadri retaliating and hitting Wingles into the boards from behind. The result saw Kadri hit with a game misconduct and five-minute major penalty.

Kadri wasn’t happy commenting that,

“I just felt like he made contact with Mitchy’s head to start, and I didn’t see a call there. He was turning up the wall so I was committed to the hit, and then he ended up falling. It happened pretty quick. It’s in the hands of the NHL.”

For Boston’s Bergeron, it is the combination of Pastranal, Macharnd and himself that has seen a collective 99 goals this season before the playoffs, and they set the pace of the game last night getting physical on the ice and skating hard.

Bergeron commented that he feels it has been the communication that has been part of their success saying,

“Every time we come back to the bench we talk about what we saw and what we can do better. That’s been key to creating that chemistry.”

Toronto’s top line had a tough time finding the room needed to make scoring plays as Boston played hard and dominated their neutral zone. The Leafs power play failed to get the job done and is 0 for 3 and only has a 32% success rate since January. Boston, on the other hand, scored three times while in a power play positon. The first came at 15:43 breaking the 1-1 tie and the second came after the Leafs failed to take advantage of power plays. With 38 seconds remaining in the second period, Boston tapped in another to make it 3-1.

Marchand was again creating controversy after behaving strangely when he shoved Nikita Zaitsev into Frederick Andersen and then licked the face of Leo Komarov’s face. This is the second time Marchand has acted in this way; the first came earlier in the season.

Speaking about Komarov’s strange behavior, Kadri said,

“That was weird,” Kadri said. “That was very weird to me. It’s agitating at that point. It’s certainly uncomfortable to watch.”

The third period saw the Leafs killing off penalties, but their efforts did little to stop the Bruins as Kuraly scored to make it 4-1 and Krejci added another to make it 5-1. This is the first time since 2013 that the two teams have faced off in the Playoffs, one which saw Toronto give up a three goal lead in the 7th game. The result saw Boston win the series, so tension is high going into this series with the Leafs on a revenge mission of sorts.