Recreation 2 takeaways: Matthews shines, Leafs beat Bruins to even collection
Game 2 takeaways: Matthews shines, Leafs beat Bruins to even series initially appeared on NBC Sports Boston
BOSTON — The drought is over for the Toronto Maple Leafs. They’ve lastly received in Boston.
The primary-round Stanley Cup Playoff collection between these Authentic Six rivals is now even at a recreation apiece after the Leafs earned a 3-2 victory in Monday evening’s Recreation 2 at TD Backyard.
The Leafs had misplaced eight consecutive video games to the Bruins and hadn’t received on this constructing since March 29, 2022. However Toronto confirmed spectacular resilience, overcoming 1-0 and 2-1 deficits en path to a much-needed win.
The Bruins opened the scoring at 10:18 of the primary interval when Morgan Geekie cashed in on the facility play. The Leafs tied the rating simply 14 seconds later when Max Domi beat Bruins goalie Linus Ullmark in entrance of the web. The Bruins went forward 2-1 late within the first interval on a David Pastrnak purpose. However the Leafs did not go away. John Tavares scored Toronto’s first power-play purpose of the collection within the second interval to even the rating at two.
Auston Matthews gave the Leafs their first lead over the Bruins all season when he beat Ullmark on a breakaway at 12:06 of the third interval.
Leafs goalie Ilya Samsonov performed significantly better in Recreation 2 than he did within the collection opener. He made 27 saves. Ullmak made his collection debut for Boston and had 30 saves.
The Leafs have taken the home-ice benefit with the collection now shifting to Toronto for Recreation 3 at Scotiabank Enviornment on Wednesday evening. However earlier than we stay up for that matchup, listed here are three takeaways from Bruins-Leafs Recreation 2.
Leafs stars lastly present up
The Leafs’ celebrity forwards — Auston Matthews, John Tavares and Mitch Marner — have been all held off the scoresheet in Recreation 1. They performed significantly better in Recreation 2.
Tavares scored on the facility play with a turnaround shot with 1:34 left within the second interval.
Matthews hadn’t scored a purpose in six consecutive playoff video games, however he lastly broke via within the third interval by capitalizing on a breakaway scoring alternative.
Matthews made an influence in a number of different areas, too. He tallied eight photographs on internet, six hits and went 16-of-23 within the faceoff circle. The Leafs had a 13-4 edge in scoring probabilities throughout Matthews’ 17:01 of 5-on-5 ice time. He additionally picked up assists on the opposite two Leafs targets for a three-point recreation.
Marner nonetheless hasn’t tallied some extent on this collection, and William Nylander — who scored 40 targets within the common season — has but to play on this collection as a consequence of an undisclosed harm. However the efforts from Tavares and Matthews have been an enormous step ahead for the Maple Leafs. They want these $10-11 million stars to point out up persistently to beat the Bruins three extra occasions.
Particular groups once more performs big issue
The Bruins’ energy play struggles to finish the common season have been well-documented. They ranked thirtieth out of 32 groups with a ten.5 % success charge during the last two weeks.
However the energy play has been higher on this collection.
After scoring twice with the person benefit in Recreation 1, the Bruins opened the scoring within the first interval of Recreation 2 when Morgan Geekie was credited along with his third profession postseason purpose.
The Bruins have been on the facility play as a result of Leafs defenseman Jake McCabe cross-checked Jakub Lauko after the whistle in one other show of undisciplined play by Toronto.
Boston’s energy play has scored 3 times on this collection and 6 occasions general towards the Leafs in case you embrace the 4 conferences within the common season.
The Leafs’ energy play additionally performed an element on this recreation. They lastly bought on the board with the person benefit when John Tavares scored his first purpose in his final seven playoff video games. The Bruins took 5 penalties general, together with two too-many-men penalties that might have simply been prevented.
Toronto had the No. 7 ranked energy play through the common season, and each of its items are stuffed with high-end offensive expertise. The Bruins can not afford to take so many dangerous penalties and put that star-studded group on the ice collectively.
The Leafs’ much-maligned penalty kill has performed poorly on this collection, nevertheless it did give you an enormous kill with six minutes left within the third interval.
Ullmark ‘terrific’ regardless of loss
The Bruins saved the goalie rotation going by beginning Linus Ullmark in Recreation 2 despite Jeremy Swayman’s excellent performance in the Game 1 victory.
Ullmark’s finest sequence got here throughout a second-period energy play for the Leafs. The Swedish netminder made a pair sensible saves on Grade A scoring probabilities for the Leafs, together with this shot from Calle Jarnkrok.
He made one other nice save to get a bit of this shot by Nick Robertson early within the third interval.
Ullmark completed with 30 saves on 33 photographs towards, which was fairly good contemplating the Leafs generated 37 scoring probabilities and 14 high-danger probabilities. Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery said in his postgame press conference that Ullmark was “terrific” and that he had no second guesses on the goalie determination.
So, what’s going to the Bruins’ plan be in internet for Recreation 3? Will they return to Swayman? That is what makes probably the most sense. Swayman has been wonderful towards the Leafs this season with a 4-0-0 report and a .967 save proportion, together with a 35-save victory in Recreation 1.
