• Maple Leafs rookies lead the way in wild win
• Bruins have issues between the pipes
• Van Riemsdyk plays hero for Toronto
The Toronto Maple Leafs coughed up a 4-1 stranglehold lead in a critical hockey game in Boston.
And they won.
That’s the twist. This is a new era, folks. Things don’t always fall apart.
"They should expect a win," Leafs head coach Mike Babcock told reporters in TD Garden prior to puck drop. "It’s a big game, we’re playing in Boston, I think it’s Saturday night.
"Let’s get it looked after."
Oh, how they nearly let this one slip, how the visitors almost let (another) career night for one of their kids go to waste and came painfully close to extending their run of losses to four.
Instead, Toronto called on a resiliency missing for years and escaped on the happy side of a 6-5 intra-divisional, Original Six thriller—a throwback in its ’80s-era score, its wild momentum shifts, its heavyweight fight at centre ice, and its intensity.
More of this hockey, please.
Here are seven things we took away from an unpredictable, 11-goal roller coaster with significant playoff-race implications.
NHL’s top possession team should’ve won, but that’s irrelevant
That’s what the numbers say.
At nearly 56 per cent, the Boston Bruins not only lead the entire league in Corsi, they utterly dominated puck control in this one, outshooting the Leafs 41-26 overall and out-attempting their guests 27-12 in a lopsided third frame.
The best faceoff unit in the Eastern Conference also captured 60 per cent of the draws, many of which led directly to scoring opportunities.
"If you win the draw, you spend a lot of time having the puck," Babcock said plainly.
Despite strong underlying numbers, the Bruins failed to get a key save or a standings point.
Remarkably, the B’s battled back from deficits of 4-1 (!) and 5-4—and still couldn’t push this game to overtime. That Boston has lost all three of its games to Toronto this season in regulation ensures the Leafs a tiebreaker should the playoff race come to that.
Toronto still trails Boston on the Atlantic leaderboard but holds a whopping five games in hand.
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Nylander’s silky mitts bless him with first hat trick
Swedish icon Peter Forsberg, long an observer of William Nylander’s game, sent a message to Toronto last weekend.
"Give him a few years. He’s got great hands," Forsberg advised. "He sees the game very well. I think it’s good for him to play in Toronto because they got a lot of young guys coming up and they’ll mature together."
Nylander’s great hands deked Tuukka Rask out of his streamlined pants for the game’s opening goal. In Period 2, the 20-year-old smartly used line mate Leo Komarov as a decoy and exhibited patience beyond his rookie status, waiting for Rask to hit his knees before firing high glove.
He quickly capped off his first career hat trick beating Rask five-hole on the power play—a shot that might’ve been stopped by the baggier pants of yore.
"His hockey sense, his skill, and his agility when he gets the puck is impressive," James van Riemsdyk said on-air.
Not since 1943-44 (Jack Hamilton and George Boothman) have two Leafs rookies registered hat tricks in the same season. On an 11-point night for Toronto freshmen, Nylander joined Auston Matthews by achieving the milestone.
"Pretty cool," Nylander told reporters. "It’s something I never thought would happen when we were playing like little kids back home."
P.S. With two assists, Mitchell Marner surpassed Patrik Laine in the rookie scoring race (44 points), and with three assists, Matthews is just one point behind the Winnipeg Jets star (42 points).
Marchenko’s debut on hold, but not for long
Plucked off waivers Saturday from Detroit, Alexey Marchenko was a healthy scratch on this night but might get his opportunity soon.
The 25-year-old right-shot defenceman is well known by Babcock, who encouraged the pickup. Not only does he bring size and strength to the Leafs’ depth on D, but his contract carries an extra year, making him a candidate for expansion-draft exposure.
To bring in Marchenko, Toronto waived eighth-man-out Frank Corrado.
"I hope Frank is given an opportunity," GM Lou Lamoriello told reporters. "I hope someone picks him up. I think he deserves that. He’s been a solid soldier.
"He just wasn’t able to crack the lineup. No one’s fault."
Leafs defenceman Martin Marincin had a rough night, which could open a spot for Marchenko.
Some failed zone clears led to Boston goals, he committed a trio of minor penalties, got stapled to the bench after the third one, and skated just 11:28—worst among all Leafs defenders. Marincin’s 16.7 per cent Corsi at even strength stood out, and not in a good way.
Questions will persist: How aggressively will the Leafs look to improve their blue line by March 1?
Lamoriello was asked about his trade deadline approach, but—true to form—didn’t tip his hand.
"We like our defence. There’s no question about that," Lamoriello said. "But when you can get stronger and add to the depth… it’s really a non-decision."
McQuaid bloodied Martin bad
A hard, legal check by Adam McQuaid on a ducking Auston Matthews into the end boards rapidly led to an old-school, heavyweight tilt between McQuaid and Matt "That’s What They Signed Him For" Martin, who was needed to skate for all of four minutes and 40 seconds.
After a series of furious roundhouse rights from both pugilists, Martin began leaking from his ear and then a knockdown right from McQuaid ended it.
"McQuaid has a visor on his helmet, [Martin] has no visor," Babcock told reporters. "To me it’s not fair, but Matt is a really good teammate, he does a lot for our young guys, and it’s good that he’s OK."
The scrap marked Martin’s 11th as a Leaf (including pre-season), already matching last season’s total on Long Island.
These two guys fought once before, back in November 2011, and McQuaid won that one as well.
Rask doesn’t look right
Of more concern to Boston than its 29th-place PDO (.974) or the games in hand of the competition should be its goaltending.
All-star Rask said he had "popped" his groin earlier this week, which sounds super uncomfortable, yet Boston is so untrusting of its backups Rask got the nod. Then he gave up four goals on 13 shots.
The Bruins tightened up defensively when Zane McIntyre—zero wins and a .860 save percentage in three career starts—came in to replace Rask.
The Leafs mustered just six shots in the third period but scored on two of them.
This is a problem.
Pastrnak, Bergeron have their touch back
Emerging from injury and a goal slump, David Pastrnak sniped his 21st (on the game’s first shot) and 22nd goals of the season. Perhaps more impressive was his assist. Skating to the bench to fetch a new stick, Pastrnak immediately stole the puck with his fresh graphite, carried it back into the offensive zone and set up Torey Krug on the power-play goal, capping off a wild, five-goal second period.
"We’ve just got to bring Pastrnak on the road with us all the time, take him to every rink," Babock told reporters. "[Nylander] always wants to be better than 88, so we’ve just got to get a No. 88 on every team and he’ll be unbelievable."
Surprising fans by coming out for warmups despite a sore knee, Patrice Bergeron exploded offensively. His offensive numbers have failed to impress this season, but he had three points Saturday, including the 5-5 game-tying goal—a result of Bergeron winning his 17th faceoff.
Van Riemsdyk plays hero
James van Riemsdyk’s second goal of the night was a wrister from the circle that zinged over McIntyre’s shoulder with just 96 seconds remaining. Game winner.
JVR’s first of the night was prettier. After getting crosschecked in the back by Bergeron and looking for a penalty call that never arrived, the big winger got a pass from Marner and was left all alone in the slot.
He deked Rask something awful on that one.
"In times like this, you’ve got to stick together as a team, and I think we did that for the whole game," van Riemsdyk said. "We played hard, kept coming back when things didn’t go our way. It was good."
