Boston Bruins: 3 adjustments to make against Toronto Maple Leafs

Unfortunately, the Toronto Maple Leafs walked away with the victory at home against the Boston Bruins on Saturday night.

A back and forth game finally ended when Morgan Reilly was able to secure the two points for the Leafs scoring his second of the game. three minutes and fifty-four seconds into the overtime period, he deflected a one-time shot from Mitch Marner past the Boston Bruins netmidner on the night, Jaroslav Halak.

Halak finished the night with 25 saves on 29 shots against, while Frederick Andersen deserved play of the game honors, stopping 43 shots on 46 against.

David Pastrnak was also able to keep his hot streak going as for the second game in a row he pushed the Boston Bruins into overtime by scoring a late third period goal to tie the game.

1. Improved even-strength play in the defensive zone

The Bruins were sloppy in their own end on Saturday night, most notably when Sean Kuraly turned the puck over to Dmytro Timashov which resulted in the second goal of the game for Toronto.

Turnovers appeared to be the theme of the evening for the Bruins as they had 16 of them, leading to far too many Toronto scoring chances considering the number of shots on goal they had.

Even though the Boston Bruins did a masterful job at staying out of the penalty box, not letting Toronto test their always dangerous powerplay unit, they punished themselves by consistently turning pucks over in their own end and putting Halak under pressure.

The focus on Tuesday night will be to safely get pucks out of their own end and limit any neutral zone turnovers that will put them on their heels defensively.

2. Bigger bodies in front of the net

A positive takeaway from Saturday night is that the Bruins offence was in full force, peppering Frederick Andersen with 46 shots on goal. Unfortunately for the Bruins, Andersen was zoned in on Saturday and did a great job at tracking down pucks and not giving up any rebounds.

The Bruins didn’t get in Andersen’s space enough and rarely made it difficult for the Toronto goaltender to see the puck.

Boston has some big bodies on their third and fourth lines, and they will need to strategically use those to get in the crease on Tuesday night. Look for Brett Ritchie, who is projected to see time on the second line, to mix it up next game and keep Toronto’s defense preoccupied in front of the net.

I also liked Brad Marchand crashing the net late in the third period, we may need more of that from our little ball of hate next game.

3. Tuuuuuuukka Rask

Halak didn’t appear to be as sharp as he has been this season, and while I don’t make him responsible for the loss, I suspect the Boston Bruins will give the net back to Tuukka on Tuesday.

Rask was a main reason why the Bruins walked away with a playoff series win against Toronto last spring, and he has played great against them in the past twelve months. A few of Toronto’s goals on Saturday night were because of unfortunate bounces in front of the Bruins goal, but I still think Halak should have saved the first two goals Toronto had in the first period.

We’ll see the impact that Rask has in the minds of the Toronto players at home on Tuesday night, and I expect that we’ll see a great bounce back effort in the net.

Overall I liked what I saw from the Bruins in their first match-up against the rival Maple Leafs. Three-on-three hockey is not the Boston Bruins strength, so I was not upset with the result on Saturday, and think the boys did a great job of battling hard and forcing the game into over time.

dark. Next. Pastrnak named NHL's 1st star of the week

It’s a long season with a few more match-ups against the Leafs, and hey, there’s no three-on-three hockey in the playoffs.

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