Toronto Maple Leafs left wing Pierre Engvall tries to keep the puck from Boston Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy during the second period at TD Garden in Boston on March 29.Winslow Townson/USA TODAY Sports via Reuters
Here we are, more than three-quarters of the way through the NHL regular season. Sixty-six games complete. Through it all, the Maple Leafs have been very good, fair to middling, and occasionally bad. Headed into Tuesday’s contest in Boston, those efforts had netted them a record that was identical to the arch-rival Bruins.
They took different paths – Toronto was hot early and Boston has been pouring it on lately – but there is a struggle between them with one month to decide who plays who and who goes where in the playoffs. Both trail Florida and Tampa Bay in the Atlantic Division; it won’t be easy to catch either.
They renewed hostilities at TD Garden with a lot more at stake than when they met in early November in Toronto. The Maple Leafs beat the visiting Bruins then, 5-2, but that was then and this is now.
A funny thing happened at the house of horrors on Legends Way, a place where Torontonians have been bullied so often it has come to be expected. Boston has eliminated Toronto in the first round three times since 2013. For the Maple Leafs, the Bruins are their very own Pennywise the dancing clown to piggyback off that noted New England sportswriter Stephen King.
Not so in this Boston massacre, however. Six different players scored for Toronto in a 6-4 thumping that won’t erase postseason disappointments of the past but it felt glorious enough anyway for the visitors. It came only three days after a defeat of the first-place Panthers.
Toronto is 42-19-5 and third in the Atlantic for now with a game back home on Thursday against the Winnipeg Jets.
Jack Campbell, who has been out since the end of January with a rib injury, could return to the Maple Leafs’ net.
Petr Mrazek, who has started in his place, suffered a possible groin injury in the first period and left after giving up a goal on four shots.
Mrazek has been hurt more than not and had just enjoyed one of his best outings in the victory over Florida.
“It’s tough,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “Peter has been gaining traction and has been playing well. I don’t know what the prognosis is going to be.”
Rookie Erik Kallgren replaced him and earned the victory by stopping 23 of the 26 shots he faced.
Toronto also finished the contest with only four defencemen after it lost Justin Holl to a puck that struck him in the head and Ilya Lyubushkin to a punch to the face from Taylor Hall.
Keefe said both will be assessed on Wednesday, which is an off day for the team.
The Maple Leafs went up 3-1 in the first period and rode that to an unlikely lopsided triumph. It was unlikely because Toronto has won fewer than one-third of the 343 games it has played here since Paul Revere’s midnight ride, or 1924, whichever came first.
It was a rough-and-tumble encounter with lots of hard edges and sharp elbows flying each way. Players on both sides paraded to the penalty boxes as if prizes were being handed out there. The Maple Leafs had 12 minutes in penalties while the Bruins had 22, 10 of which were handed to Brad Marchand.
The crowd was loud and cranky the longer the encounter went on. Midway through the second period, a frustrated Bruins fan bellowed, “Somebody hit somebody!” Moments later, when Jeremy Swayman stopped a Toronto shot, the building erupted in mock cheers.
By then the Bruins netminder had given up four goals on a dozen shots. When Hall was sent to the penalty box for punching Lyubushkin in the side of the face, still in the second period, the audience erupted in chants that sounded suspiciously like “bullspit.”
The Maple Leafs last won in Boston in 2017, and COVID-19 has interrupted things so much that this was Sheldon Keefe’s first opportunity to climb behind the bench here since he took over as head coach in November of 2019.
“It’s weird,” Keefe said of the time between when he was tabbed to replace Mike Babcock and his first trip to Boston. So confused was he upon arrival at the arena on Tuesday for the morning skate that he couldn’t find the visiting coaches’ room without help.
Toronto came in chugging along with six wins in its last 10 outings, including 5-2 over the Panthers on Sunday. Boston was 8-1-1 in its last 10 and 14-2-1 over the previous 17. It had not been better during the 2021-22 campaign.
“We played a full 60 minutes,” Alexander Kerfoot, the Maple Leafs forward, said. “That was a pretty complete game out of us. We didn’t give them much life.”
Kerfoot had one of Toronto’s half-dozen goals, jitterbugging around Swayman on a breakaway.
“I have tried that move a few times this year and it hasn’t worked,” Kerfoot said. “I decided to try it one more time.”
Forward Colin Blackwell, who was acquired from Seattle with defenceman Mark Giordano before the trade deadline, scored for the first time since then on a tip-in to give Toronto a 1-0 lead with 14:51 left in the first period.
After Hall tied it for Boston at 1-1, Morgan Rielly put the Maple Leafs ahead again, and then Kerfoot beat Swayman to make it 3-1.
Mitch Marner scored his career-high 28th goal midway through the second, after which Auston Matthews netted a rebound and David Kampf added another to make it 6-1. It was Matthews’s league-leading 49th goal.
On Thursday, he has a chance to become Toronto’s first 50-goal scorer since Dave Andreychuk in 1993-94.
“It is not something I really think about,” Matthews said earlier in the day. “I just try to take it day by day. That kind of stuff has a way of working itself out. It is not something I am too focused on.”
Matthews has 12 goals and four assists over his last 10 games to lead Leon Draisaitl of Edmonton by one.
The Bruins got a goal from Jake DeBrusk to cut the deficit to 6-2 in the second but there was little for them to celebrate. They added two more in the third but by then it was too late. The 524th consecutive full house at TD Garden rewarded them with jeers.
For once, Toronto left the Bay State on a high note. It quelled the crowd and quieted Pennywise.
“We have two huge wins in a row in the division,” Kerfoot said. “We’ve got to keep this rolling to solidify our spot in the playoffs.”