Kuraly, B’s rake Leafs
Take season series
TORONTO — The Toronto Maple Leafs made the biggest splash of last summer, beating out the Bruins, among other teams, to sign prized free agent John Tavares.
BRUINS 3 MAPLE LEAFS 2
Unfortunately for the Leafs, Tavares is a center, not a defenseman. And last night, the B’s exposed the the explosive Leafs’ Achilles heel on the blue line. On a tremendous night for Sean Kuraly, the B’s beat the Leafs, 3-2, to take the regular season series 3-1 and climb to within two points of second-place Toronto in the Atlantic Division. After briefly losing a lead in the second period, they tied it again on a Kuraly goal. And then Kuraly beat two Leafs to a soft Nikita Zaitsev pass late in the second. Kuraly fed David Pastrnak for the go-ahead goal with 14.8 seconds left in the period. Pastrnak’s tally held up as the winner, as Tuukka Rask (30 saves) and the B’s team defense — itself a bit slack in the first two periods — shut the door in the third. Auston Matthews did have a great chance to tie it up with just under four minutes left in regulation, but he lifted a backhander over an empty net. But when the Leafs pulled goalie Michael Hutchinson with 2:04 left, the B’s did an excellent job of clogging passing and shooting lanes. Kuraly, meanwhile, earned his first star status by the end of the game. He tied it up with his fifth goal of the season and had the primary assists on the other two goals. “Listen, you need secondary scoring to win. We talked about it earlier in the year when we weren’t winning. Now we’re getting it and we’re getting the points,” coach Bruce Cassidy said. “Good for (Kuraly’s line with Chris Wagner and Noel Acciari). They work hard. They’re well liked by their teammates and well respected. You want good things to happen for those guys offensively and it is, recently.” On another night, Rask might have been the first star. He stopped a Mitch Marner breakaway and and a 2-on-1 on the same Bruins power play and he faced 26 shots through the first two periods. But Rask tipped his cap to Kuraly. “I think he and the whole line have been playing great for a couple of months now,” Rask said. “They’re getting rewarded now so it’s great to see. They work extremely hard every day, every game and I think we’re just happy for them to get that reward.” Though outplayed for much of the first period, he B’s took the first lead of the game at 18:21 of the first when Kuraly retrieved a Zdeno Chara clear in and then did a good job of possessing the puck along boards until he fed an oncoming David Krejci, just off the bench. Krejci got the puck with a lot of space in the high slot and he used a Wagner screen to hammer it past Hutchinson. It appeared as though the game might get away from the B’s in the second period. The Leafs got on the board on a fluky goal at 7:27. Rask snared an Andreas Johnsson shot with his glove but couldn’t hang on to it. When he tried to bring the puck down, it went off the back of Kevan Miller’s leg and dribbled back in between Rask’s pads. Then, with Miller in the box for holding, Mitch Marner gave the Leafs a 2-1 lead when he blistered a short-side slapper off the post and in at 9:30. But the B’s scrapped back to take the lead before the game was out. Kuraly’s Crash Line evened it up at 14:47. Acciari first delivered a big hit on Zaitsev and then Wagner took the puck from Jake Gardiner, feeding Kuraly out front for the equalizer. Then it appeared the B’s caught the Leafs napping in the final seconds of the second. Near the left corner, Zaitsev softly pushed a Charlie McAvoy clear-in back behind his own net, but Kuray hustled in behind him and got the loose puck. As William Nylander and Nazem Kadri converged on Kuraly, the Bruin forward hit Pastrnak coming down the slot for his 26th of the season with 14.8 seconds left. “All I’m thinking is to get to the puck first,” Kuraly said. “And once I got to the puck first, I saw Pasta. It doesn’t go through all the time. It went through a couple of guys. Thought I’d give it a try, and I guess the risk was worth the reward on that one.” Indeed it was. And in the third the B’s defense, healthy for the first time all year, found their legs and pretty much shut down the Leafs, allowing just six shots on net intheperiod. It might not have been a perfect game by the B’s, but it was good enough for two points. And now they are within reach of the Leafs, something that seemed unlikely in the summer when Tavares chose blueand-white instead of blackand-gold.