Toronto Maple Leafs vs Boston Bruins: Start time, live streaming, TV info

The Boston Bruins will play host to the Toronto Maple Leafs this Tuesday night, having faced them in Canada just a few days before.

On that occasion, an overtime winner from Morgan Rielly ensured the home team collected the full share of points; the Boston Bruins will no doubt be hoping that home-ice plays to their advantage this time around.

The Toronto Maple Leafs head into this game with a back-to-back on their schedule; downed 4-3 in over-time by the Columbus Blue Jackets in a relatively average affair. Their team certainly seems to go from elite to lacklustre in the space of a sixty minute game.

Hopefully, the game on Monday night has already tired the Leafs, who will be without captain John Tavares who remains out with a broken finger. Given how we dominated them during the last game, you’d expect a tired team may be easy pickings. However, such thinking often leads to over-confidence.

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As ever, the big-name players are the ones to watch. Rielly came away with two goals last time out, whilst Auston Matthews is near goal-per-game this season and Mitch Marner, as ever continues to tally assists.

Perhaps the biggest change to this team since we played them to seven games in last year’s play-offs is that they’re now employing some degree of checking line. The combinations of Nick Shore, Frederick Gauthier, Jason Spezza, Dmytro Timashov and Trevor Moore make up a really quite impressive group with their persistent fore-checking.

In the traditional sense, they still lack size and perhaps that layer of aggression that comes with throwing the body around, but they make up for it with a worker ant approach, constantly creating a nuisance of themselves.

Of course, they have a huge challenge on their hands with the recent form of David Pastrnak earning him recognition as the NHL’s 1st Star of the Week, while Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron, as ever, have been playing the perfect partners-in-crime for our Czech winger!

Ensuring we put pucks on the Toronto Maple Leafs net will be key; namely because we expect Michael Hutchinson, their backup goalie, to be between the pipes. Mike Babcock seems very set on using him in the second half of back-to-backs.

Given that David Krejci is likely missing and Par Lindholm isn’t a guarantee to play either, the Boston Bruins may have some struggles winning in the face-off stakes, but provided any face-off loss is dealt with as opposed to opening up chances, we should get by without the regular center-men.

Expect Charlie Coyle and potentially David Backes to be filling in, if needed, down the center. Obviously Bergeron will be leading the line and Sean Kuraly is expected to anchor his usual fourth line.

Last time out, it was a dominant Boston Bruins performance in most areas of play, though the scoreboard read differently, favouring the Maple Leafs. Tonight, with a net likely devoid of Frederick Andersen, it may well be an altogether easier encounter for the Bruins. Let’s hope so.

Viewing Information

Date: October 22nd, 2019
Time: 19:00 EDT
Where: TD Garden
TV Broadcast: TVAS, NESN, TSN4
Live Streaming: NHL.tv (subscription required), ESPN+ (subscription required)

ESPN+ has a free 7-day trial that includes live streaming for this game on all your smart devices! Besides NHL games, ESPN+ features a selection of live games from MLB, MLS, Serie A, FA Cup, and EFL. Get in on the action with Live UFC Fight Nights, 30+ Top Rank Boxing cards, Grand Slam tennis from Wimbledon, US Open and Australian Open.

The Boston Bruins certainly have the players to take advantage of a tired Maple Leafs group. Let’s hope we add to their misery of one loss already in this back-to-back.