Leafs blitzed by Bruins line charge
BOSTON — Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Mike Babcock says he’s never seen a line score 20 points in two games.
Until his team’s six-period horror show at Boston’s Toronto-Dominion Garden, that is.
David Pastrnak, the 21-yearold Czech sensation, had a hat trick to go along with three assists, linemates Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron set up four goals apiece, and the Boston Bruins thumped Toronto, 7-3, on Saturday night to take a 2-0 lead in their best-of-seven firstround National Hockey League playoff series.
The Bruins’ top line of Pastrnak, Marchand and Bergeron combined for six points in a 5-1 victory in Game 1, and added an eye-popping 14 more in this one against the floundering Leafs.
Asked to recall a similar performance, Babcock couldn’t.
“No, and if I had, I’d try to block it out of my mind probably,” he said. “Obviously they’re dominating us.”
The same question about a trio registering five goals and 15 assists in two games was put to Leafs defenceman Morgan Rielly, whose answer was more brief: “I just did, yeah.”
Toronto’s No. 1 line centred by Auston Matthews, which has gone up against the Pastrnak-Marchand-Bergeron unit most of the time at even strength, has been held off the scoreboard through 120 minutes in the series.
Asked about the disparity, the secondyear star was blunt in his reply.
“(Expletive) happens, I guess,” Matthews said. “It’s hockey, we’ve got to rebound.”
Jake DeBrusk, Kevan Miller, Rick Nash and David Krejci had the other goals for Boston. Torey Krug added three assists for the Bruins, who got 30 stops from Tuukka Rask.
Mitch Marner, with a goal and an assist, Tyler Bozak and James van Riemsdyk replied for the Leafs. Frederik Andersen allowed three goals on five shots before getting pulled in favour of Curtis McElhinney, who made 19 saves in relief.
The Eastern Conference quarter-final now switches to Air Canada Centre in Toronto for Games 3 and 4 on Monday and Thursday.
“We’ve got plenty of stuff to look at (and) get ourselves prepped,” Toronto defenceman Ron Hainsey said. “We can be better in certainly just about all aspects.”
Pastrnak and Marchand were on the ice for all seven of Boston’s goals Saturday, while Bergeron was on for six.
Pastrnak is the youngest player in NHL history to score six points in a playoff game, eclipsing the mark set by Wayne Gretzky (22 years, 81 days) in Game 3 of the 1983 division final.
He also matched a Bruins record for the most points collected through two games of a series, equalling the nine Phil Esposito scored in the 1969 Stanley Cup final.
“Hell of night,” Marchand said of Pastrnak’s performance. “He’s an awesome player.”
The Leafs actually had a better start than Thursday when they were nearly run out of the rink in the game’s first 10 minutes, but the Bruins grabbed the lead at 5:26 when Pastrnak picked up the puck in front of Andersen and made a slick move to score his second goal of the series.
A Boston power play that went three for six in the opener then went to work after Toronto was penalized for too many men on the ice. DeBrusk outmuscled Leafs defenceman Nikita Zaitev, who would be on for all four firstperiod goals, in front to redirect Krug’s feed. The goal came after Toronto’s Kasperi Kapanen hit the post on a short-handed breakaway. Boston’s deluge continued when Miller was allowed too much time and space in the corner before firing a puck in front that deflected in off Zaitsev.