Toronto Maple Leafs: We’re Shipping up to Boston
By Josh Tessler
The Toronto Maple Leafs are set to take on the Boston Bruins back-to-back.
Tonight, the Toronto Maple Leafs will face the Bruins at the Air Canada Centre at 7:00 pm on TSN4 and tomorrow night the Leafs will be in Boston at TD Garden for a 7:00 pm start time on CBC.
The Leafs shouldn’t be too worried about the Bruins. Honestly, the Bruins don’t look so hot. They are currently 6-5-3 on the season and are fifth in the Atlantic. Zdeno Chara is at the end of his career and doesn’t have much to offer for Boston’s blue-line. David Backes, Noel Acciari, David Krejci, Ryan Spooner and Adam McQuaid are all on injured reserve. Safe to say it’s not fun being a Bruins fan right now.
But for Leafs fans, you should be ecstatic about facing the division foe twice at this point in the season. With the Bruins’ injury bug, they don’t have many threats left on the ice that are capable of dominating the Leafs.
Let’s take a look at what they do have to offer.
Patrice Bergeron
Yes, the Bruins offense might be a bit depleted with Backes and Krejci on the shelf, but they do still have Patrice Bergeron, David Pastrnak, and Brad Marchand.
Bergeron is the cornerstone of the Bruins offense and an excellent playmaker. But, he is way too inconsistent. Two seasons ago, Bergeron had a strong season. In the 2016-17 regular season, he posted 32 goals and 36 assists. But last season, he became Mr. Inconsistent again. His goals dropped to 21 and assists dropped to 32.
My readers may look at my blog and say, wait Josh, you only mentioned the last two seasons.
Yes, I did, but I’m not writing a biography on Bergeron and if you click on the link you’ll see his stats are pretty inconsistent year after year.
Pastrnak & Marchand
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Let’s move to Pastrnak.
Pastrnak is ultimately the best offensive player that the Bruins have. He’s the Bruins modern day Phil Kessel.
Last season, he was a rockstar for the Bruins. He scored 34 goals, of which 10 came on the power-play.
The Leafs defensive core needs to pay special attention to Pastrnak tonight and tomorrow night otherwise he’ll have a field day.
Marchand.
As a hockey fan, I hate this guy. But let’s be honest, if Marchand played for the Leafs, you’d love this guy. He is a replica of Sean Avery except he doesn’t make rude comments about players’ significant others and he can actually score.
Last year, Marchand was a beast for the Bruins. He scored 39 goals and had 46 assists. Both goals and assists were a career high for Marchand.
This year, it doesn’t look like Marchand is slowing day. He’s got 14 points in 12 games.
Bad news for the Leafs though is that Marchand and Pastrnak typically play on the same line. So the Leafs defense who have look rocky as of late will have their hands full.
Rest of the Bruins Offense
Honestly, the rest of the Bruins offense doesn’t have much to offer. The only player I will mention is Danton Heinen, who has looked like a solid second-liner this season.
Heinen normally would be on the third or fourth line, but due to Bruins’ injuries, he’s on the second line.
Heinen is playing in his second season for Boston and has put up solid offensive numbers. He has 2 goals and 5 assists in 7 games.
Beyond Heinen, there isn’t much left to be concerned with.
Bruins Blue-Liners
Let’s move to the Bruins’ defensive pairings. Typically, Chara aka Big Z is featured alongside Charlie McAvoy.
For those Leaf fan who don’t remember, the Bruins also paired Chara with Dougie Hamilton when Dougie first joined the Bruins.
The Bruins typically like to pair their number 1 defensive prospect with Chara as a way to mentor the younger defensive prospects.
This defensive core sounds vigorous on paper, but Chara is falling apart. He’s now 40 years old and posting the worst Corsi-for and Fenwick-for percentages of his career. Currently, his Corsi-for percentage is 44.3 and his Fenwick-for percentage is 45.0. It’s safe to say that Chara doesn’t have much left in the tank and this should be his final year in the NHL.
Krug & Carlo
The best defensive pairing for the Bruins is the second pairing with Torey Krug and Brandon Carlo. Both defensemen are still very young and developing.
The issue with these two is Krug. Krug this season has been strong offensively but needs to come back and help Carlo out in the Bruins zone.
I normally hate looking at the plus/minus stat, but when Krug has been on the ice he’s allowing a ton of goals to get past Rask. Currently, his plus/minus stat is a -9.
Seems like Bruce Cassidy, the Bruins’ head coach will have to work tirelessly with Krug to develop his defensive skill-set.
Recap & Prediction
To recap, the Leafs look potent to grab back-to-back wins against the Bruins as long as the Leafs defense can keep Pasternak and Marchand in check.
For tonight’s game, I predict the Leafs to win 5-2 in front of the hometown fans.
In the game tomorrow night, the Leafs will win but by a closer margin. My prediction is that tomorrow night’s game goes to overtime and the Leafs prevail with a score of 4-3.