Last night, the Toronto Maple Leafs forced a game seven in Boston as they defeated the Boston Bruins at the Air Canada Centre.
Prior to last night’s win, Mike Babcock told the press that he was looking forward to returning to Boston for game 7 since he loves New England Clam Chowder.
Or as the local New Englanders call it, “Chowdah”.
Last night in Toronto, the boys in blue made sure that Babcock would be shipping up to Boston and heading to Legal Sea Foods. They defeated the Bruins by a score of 3-1.
Quiet First, But Stellar Second
In the first period, the Bruins were the better team.
Out of the gate, they were firing shots at all cylinders. At the end of the first period, the Bruins had out-shot the Leafs 17-10. Throughout the first, Frederik Andersen kept his team alive. He stopped a great wrist shot from Brad Marchand at around the 13-minute mark. Marchand then fired a backhand shot at Andersen later on in the first, with Freddie making sure nothing was going behind him.
In the second period, the Bruins opened up the scoring. Jake DeBrusk found the back of the net for the third time this series. The Bruins won a faceoff draw in the Leafs zone. Off the draw, David Krejci passed the puck to DeBrusk. DeBrusk skated a little close to Andersen and plant a wrist shot in the back of the net.
Less than 45 seconds later, the Maple Leafs were up on the score sheet. As William Nylander grabbed a rebound off of Tuukka Rask and threw the puck in Rask’s blind spot to tie the game.
The Leafs weren’t done. Later on in the period, Mitch Marner found pay dirt. At roughly the 6:45 mark in the second, the Maple Leafs were in the Bruins’ zone. Ron Hainsey had the puck at the point and delivered a pass to the centre of the zone, where Tomas Plekanec and Marner were parked. It appeared that the pass was intended for Plekanec, however, Marner scooped it up, then delivered a backhand shot past Rask to grab a 2-1 lead.
Zach Hyman appeared to have a goal in the second period. But, the referees reviewed the goal and deemed that there was goaltender interference.
I’ll touch more on this later in the post.
Third Period
In the third period, the Leafs out-played the Bruins. It was as if they pulled a complete 180-degree turn from the previous game where they were defeating the Bruins but letting the Bruins run the ice.
At roughly the 8:45 minute mark, Nylander parked himself right next to Rask. Auston Matthews was against the boards fighting for the puck, finally passing it to Nylander. Nylander then delivered a quick shot, forcing Rask to make a heck of a save.
Later on, the Leafs were able to shut down the Bruins power-play. The penalty kill unit was superb, with Connor Brown making an amazing interception and Andersen being a brick wall.
With the period dying out, the Bruins pulled Rask out of the net for an extra attacker. Plekanec came to the rescue with an empty-net insurance goal to give the Leafs a 3-1 lead.
Controversial Goalie Interference Call
As mentioned earlier, there was a goalie interference call in the second period last night.
You can see in the video below that Bruins’ centre, Patrice Bergeron, was skating with Zach Hyman. Bergeron appeared to push Hyman into the crease and thus into Rask. It didn’t appear that Hyman had the intent to push down Rask to grab a goal.
I’m sure that Bruins fans would disagree with me, but goalie interference has been an issue throughout the season and the playoffs. Gary Bettman desperately needs to address goalie interference in his summer meetings with the owners. I joked last night on Twitter that if I poked Rask, it would have been goalie interference.
None-the-less, the league needs to really crack down on the rules for goalie interference because Hyman clearly didn’t have intent on pushing Rask down.
Recap
To recap, the Toronto Maple Leafs played a great game last night at the Air Canada Centre and ensured that there would be a game 7 at TD Garden.
Your local Boston Editor in Leaf contributors, Nick DeSouza (@NickDeSouza_) and myself (@TesslerJosh) will be in attendance at tomorrow night’s affair. Ping us on twitter if you’d like to meet up and chat!