Maple Leafs vs. Bruins in Game 2

“We’ve got some work to do tomorrow to look after what happened here tonight, and continue to improve, and we can try and change the story come Monday night”. The Bruins added another power-play goal – their second of the night and fifth of the series – to make it 4-0 after one.

Pastrnak (21 years, 324 days) is the youngest player in National Hockey League history to score six points in a playoff game, eclipsing the mark set by Wayne Gretzky (22 years, 81 days) in Game 3 of the 1983 division final.

While the Bruins took Game 1, there could be a long series ahead, as both sides of round one know all too well.

Still, the Bruins do not expect any cumulative drop-off in performance as Kadri leaves the lineup.

The Bruins top line – Pastrnak, Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand were simply dominate. Defenseman Torey Krug set the play in motion with a hard rush through the neutral zone in the middle of the ice. The team has been forced to kill penalties just 8.4 minutes per game over their last 10 outings. SCOUTING THE BRUINS Two things the Bruins definitely do better than the Leafs.

Leading with face-off wins this season for the team (57.31%), the assistant captain, in my opinion, is the play maker for the Bruins’ first line.

Marchand also provided some levity in the opener when he licked – yes, licked – the face of Toronto’s Komarov after the two had tussled most of the night. On this night, that player was David Pastrnak, who had a hat trick and six points total Saturday. For the second straight contest, the “other” Lightning forwards featured prominently to help build up a big lead-Alex Killorn scored twice on the power play in the second period, part of a four-goal period for the Lightning to establish a 5-1 lead.

Now a year older, the first two games against Toronto have been anything but frustrating for the 21-year-old.

“For sure, I mean, he’s got that confidence grow so he wants to be the guy, he wants to make those plays and if we don’t have the puck he hunts it back. To go to the dirty areas, you need courage”, Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said. “I think I was in a vulnerable spot”. While in the penalty box, Rick Nash scored his first playoff goal for the Bruins, just 11 seconds in to the man advantage situation … It’s no secret van Riemsdyk will be offered a big deal after scoring 36 goals in the regular season but Bozak’s next contract is still a mystery. To say that he hasn’t learned anything from the dynamic Bergeron-Marchand duo is an understatement.

The Bruins got on the board just over five minutes into the game when David Pastrnak controlled a bouncing puck in front of the Maple Leafs net and tucked it behind Leafs’ goaltender Frederik Anderson to put Boston up 1-0. Perhaps preemptively learning from the Leafs’ mistakes in Game 1, I think it’s important for the Bruins to play smart and clean. Take the lessons, what they have for you. Toronto is 7-2 in the last nine meetings. He had gone five games without a point… But then Pastrnak opened the floodgates at 5:26 of the first.

We’ll see how it goes for Rask in Toronto, but so far so good for the Bruins netminder.

The Bruins’ top line got all the headlines and deservingly so. Even worse, it led to Kadri’s suspension.

Tuukka Rask, meanwhile, has played very well in the Boston net.

As a collective unit, Beantown has been penalized 3.8 times per game overall this season, and 3.0 per game over its last five contests.

Even though they finished the regular season with the best record in the Eastern Conference and the third best record in the entire National Hockey League there didn’t seem to be a ton of optimism surrounding the Tampa Bay Lightning entering the Stanley Cup Playoffs. That figure has trended higher recently, as the team has averaged 10.6 takeaways over its last 10 games and 9.8 takeaways over its last five.