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Coming into Toronto with a five-game winning streak under their belt, the Boston Bruins knew that they’d have their hands full with the offensive firepower of the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Leafs entered the night with the second best offense in the Atlantic Division (their 47 goals for tied them with Boston in that regard), one of the league’s top snipers in
Phil Kessel, and with wins in six of their last ten contests. But the Bruins had the weapons to handle such an attack, the stats would indicate.
Boston’s starter, the 27-year-old
Tuukka Rask, came into play with five wins and a .958 save percentage in six career starts at the Air Canada Centre. He even stopped 32-of-33 in a start in Toronto’s barn back on Oct. 25. With the exception of the Panthers, there’s not a team in this league that Rask has tortured more than Toronto.
Not tonight, though. The Leafs flipped the script, and bullied the Bruins in all three zones for 60 minutes.
The night didn’t start out as awful as it could have, all things considered. The Black and Gold somehow escaped the first period down by just one, with Kessel’s absolute laser beating
Tuukka Rask cleanly. The goal came on a funny bounce off the boards in front of the Maple Leaf bench, too, allowing Kessel to use his speed to blow through the Bruins’ third pairing of
Zach Trotman and
Torey Krug.
Vezina or not, there’s not much a goaltender can do when you give a talent like Kessel that much space (or watch him play a game against Boston that doesn’t feature the 6-foot-9
Zdeno Chara).
And that was a direct result of Leafs’ coach
Randy Carlyle using home ice and last change to his advantage. He was able to routinely get Toronto’s bigger guns on the ice against the Krug-Trotman pairing, or even the B’s second pairing of
Adam McQuaid and
Joe Morrow, by all means doing his best to keep his top-tier talents away from Boston’s makeshift top-pairing of
Dennis Seidenberg and
Dougie Hamilton. Hell, even the Seidenberg-Hamilton pairing were trounced all night long.
But again, a one-goal hole through 20 minutes wasn’t the end of the world.
(This is where this whole thing becomes a laugher.)
Just 18 seconds into the second, Kessel struck again. A minute and 16 seconds later?
Morgan Rielly. And then a minute and 58 seconds after that it was
Tyler Bozak’s power-play goal that made it 4-0, and ended Rask’s night after just 23 minutes and 12 saves on 16 shots. It was a downright ridiculous stretch with the Leafs dominating the puck, pace, and scoring three times in just three minutes and 14 seconds.
The Bruins thought they slowed the bleeding and put themselves back into the mix when
Reilly Smith appeared to score on the power play, but a
Carl Soderberg goaltender interference put that one to rest, negating the would-be tally and thankfully scrapping everyone’s “It was 4-1” jokes.
Toronto made it 5-0 shortly after, with
James van Riemsdyk tipping one home for his seventh goal of the season, and by all means putting the nail in any coffin you thought wasn’t already six feet under.
Dennis Seidenberg scored the B’s only goal of the night late in the second, while
Peter Holland score the Leafs’ sixth goal of the night 7:21 into the third period.
At the end of the three, what could you say? (Besides a booming ‘woof’, of course.)
Start to finish, this was an absolutely embarrassing display from the Bruins.
Chara or no Chara, their defensive game was a nightmare. Miller or no Miller, there wasn’t a single player back there that answered Toronto’s willingness to battle for the puck along the boards and behind the Boston net. Their penalty kill went a woeful 1-for-4 on the night, and their forwards were terrible with the exception of let’s say,
Seth Griffith and
Gregory Campbell (aside from Campbell inexplicably dropping a pass back to Adam McQuaid between the circles. No, not Torey Krug, but Adam McQuaid.)
It was a game where
Claude Julien would have liked to have benched players that weren’t showing up (a huge spotlight shines on
Milan Lucic), but couldn’t with the second leg of this back-to-back coming tomorrow night in Montreal. He also couldn’t really promote or reward anybody with more minutes.
This was 60 minutes of nightmare fuel in Boston, and it was a long time coming, you’d say.
A five-game winning streak can mask a lot of stuff for a hockey club. Especially when it’s against a) bad teams, b) 80 percent at home, and c) against clubs you should be able to outscore every day of the week. The Bruins had a little bit of all of that working for them, and that created a brief sense of everything-is-okay-please-don’t-panic around the club’s sans Chara life. But like we talked about today, this Bruins club did not face an offense like the Maple Leafs’ offense throughout their streak. They did not have to put their second and third pairings against a talent like Phil Kessel. They did not deal with a blue line as mobile as the Toronto blue line (excluding Roman Polak and Stephane Robidas).
For instance, just take a look at Kessel's second goal of the game. Morrow, a prospect asked to log serious top-four minutes for the Bruins in the now, backs off, giving Kessel even more space to load up his shot. Though he ran the risk of screening his own goaltender, Kessel is not a talent you give more space to. Not now, not ever. That doesn't happen if this game is in Boston, though, 'cause the Bruins would have Seidenberg or Hamilton on No. 81. They don't have that benefit when they're on the road, and that's something this team needs to adjust to.
Now, you obviously don’t panic after one loss, but this was certainly a reality check for the B’s. They still need Chara. They still need David Krejci. And they still desperately need to put together a defensive shutdown performance of a team featuring legitimate top-six weapons. (The latter is the most important part of it all.)
At the same time, you have to give credit to the Maple Leafs.
They treated this game like it meant something. They knew that a win put them over Boston in the Atlantic Division, and they came out flying. Oddly enough, this game reminded me a little bit of what the B’s did to their rival not too long along. It was five years ago tomorrow (or today now) that the Bruins came out flying and put an epic beatdown on the Montreal Canadiens by a 6-1 final at TD Garden. It was an evolving Boston squad telling their longtime bully that they were ready to compete, and really changed the dynamic of the divisional picture. This isn’t to suggest that this year’s Maple Leafs are going to finish one point away from the Presidents’ Trophy like the 2008-09 Bruins did, but this was a major statement from Toronto, no doubt.
I mean, have the Leafs
ever put forth a 60-minute effort like this against Boston? Or against any legitimately elite competition? They answered every question you’d have. Their bottom six outmuscled Boston’s. Kessel proved that he can beat his former club. Even
Jonathan Bernier answered his critics -- and especially those that said he can’t hang with the Black and Gold -- with a strong night.
If you’re Randy Carlyle, this is exactly the performance you wanted out of your club. But like it always has been (or so it seems), it’s about developing consistency with this style that’ll be the next and real test.
The Black and Gold have little time to sulk about this one, as they’ll head to Montreal for a Thursday night date with the hated Canadiens to complete this quick two-game getaway. This is, and this is going to be shocking I know, another big one for the Bruins. Without Chara, and in an absolute house of horrors, the Bruins desperately need to show that they can compete with the Canadiens. (Y’know the Habs, they’re the team that ousted the Bruins in seven games last spring and have proven themselves to be an unbelievable thorn in the Bruins’ side since
Michel Therrien rejoined the Habs as their bench boss.)
And to be blunt about it-- the B’s have proven that they’re not on Montreal’s level. Physically or mentally. Not yet, anyways. They crumble with the slightest Montreal pressure at the Bell Centre, and again, that’s physically and mentally. They dive face first into the Habs’ hands, and self destruct. That’s simply gotta end if the B’s want to stop their metamorphosis into the laughing stock of this suddenly one-sided rivalry.
That’s always easier said than done, though. Especially with 21,000 lunatics on your back.
Ty Anderson has been covering the Boston Bruins for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, is a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com
Boston Bruins Blogger •Bruins Feature Columnist • 
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