Game 2 is a game-changer
Leafs head home with momentum and no baggage thanks to timely scoring, goaltending
Fit to be tied. And fit to be taken seriously again. Really.
Certainly fit even to win this sucker, this playoffs, if the Maple Leafs can execute their game plan, hold their nerve and lay on the whammy to beat the band of B’s.
That much more likely if Auston Matthews has relocated his scoring eye, which had gone kind of walleyed. Certainly the stud signalled that with his winning goal on Monday: gloving down the puck at the blue line, a blur of beady-eyed intent from there in, backhand-forehand and over the right pad of Linus Ullmark.
And there it remained: 3-2 for the Leafs over the Bruins, the series now knotted, Ilya Samsonov denying Boston in last-gasp mayhem around the net.
“Really good game for us, I like it,’’ said Samsonov approvingly afterward. “Everybody stayed strong in every zone — D-zone, offensive zone. Huge team win for us.”
Take it from the goalie re: Auston — “We needed this goal. How I said before the playoffs, this guy is really important for us. We need him to score every game.”
Superstar scoring, goalie superbly solid.
That’s admittedly a lot to take out of Game 2 against the Bruins but a conquest at the rowdy and roisterous TD Garden means buzzing out of Boston with a 1-1 split, which was always the reasonable objective before the first round of the post-season launched on the weekend.
No. 1 of the post-season for Matthews — who hadn’t turned the light red since game No. 80 in the regular campaign, nine days earlier — and No. 70 in a sense (by a kindly stretch, of no official status) on the season. Matthews had also assisted on both of Toronto’s other goals.
It’s a roller-coaster ride in the post-season, which is the best part of the Second Season. Many had written Toronto off after they lost Game 1 in rather pathetic fashion.
Within the tiny, cramped, inhospitable visitors locker room (this joint is starting to feel and smell like the old Boston Garden) the players had been quite measured in their self-assessment of the opener. Generally, they’d liked the shape of the game, definitely the physicality of it, while regretting the pointless penalties, high sticks up the nose and resulting pressure put on a penalty kill that is bottom bracket of the league effectual.
So they knocked that off. Until Max Domi got Toronto on the board at 10:32 of the first period, Boston had held a lead for 219:40. Toronto with a lead? 00:00.
Starting to get monotonous, no? Starting to get inside their heads? No, as it turns out.
“Any time you have a close game like that and you have everyone stepping up ... We scored when we had to score,” said Domi.
Momentum switchback to Toronto.
“Well, we won, so there’s a lot of momentum there,” continued Domi. “And we’re going home, so there’s more momentum there, too.”
Game 2 erupted at a heady pace, much like its predecessor. Tyler Bertuzzi — a Bruin last season and playoff goal-iath, as shortened as the post-season was for Boston a year ago — was lustily booed, Charlie McAvoy stepped propulsively into Matthew Knies (keep your head up, kid) then bushwhacked John Tavares, while Ryan Reaves and Pat Maroon, respective fourthliners (the Leafs complement with a clear upper hand throughout this series) settling for jawing at one another.
The Leafs had talked ad nauseam about not taking dumbass penalties, which was their downfall in Game 1. But in under 10 minutes, Jake McCabe had been fingered for cross-checking. Though, to be fair, that was a lame call, clearly the refs sending a message early that intemperate activity would not be tolerated.
Twenty-six seconds later, Morgan Geekie opened the scoring with power-play goal No. 3 for Boston in the series. But a mere 14 seconds after that off the faceoff, Domi drew Toronto level, pouncing on a puck in the crease after Matthews rang a shot off the post.
The Leafs got away with sloppiness in the opening period, repeatedly leaving Samsonov in the lurch. Straight off a faceoff which Tavares had lost, Mitch Marner was already racing through the neutral zone, cheating on the offence, as teammates failed on two chances to clear the puck. David Pastrnak snapped his eighth career playoff goal against Toronto past Samsonov. Who mere seconds earlier had his brain pan rattled by a shot in the neck that displaced his mask.
To his credit, Marner raced like the blazes to negate, in the last stride, a two-on-one short-handed break after the Bruins took a bench minor early in the second for too many men. The formidable Toronto power play, however, couldn’t convert bupkis. They did on a subsequent interference infraction, however, Tavares making it 2-2 at 18:26 of the second period.
That left Matthews to rise to the heroics in the third. Just in time.