Bruins hold on to beat Leafs in second game of back-to-back

The Bruins had to be happy with every result on Tuesday night.

Secondary scoring pitched in for the game-winning goal, the players who were supposed to score did, and David Pastrnak remained white-hot as the Bruins earned two divisional points in a 4-2 win over the Maple Leafs at TD Garden.

After the overtime loss in Toronto on Saturday night, the Bruins ended up with three out of a possible four points in their early-season back-to-back with their rival.

And, on Tuukka Rask’s 500th career game, where he faced the team that shipped him to the Bruins more than a decade ago, the B’s netminder earned the win against 29 shots.

Brett Ritchie scored in the third period to break a tie game after the Leafs had come from behind twice to tie the Bruins.

Earlier in the game, it looked like the Bruins would have had another goal on the board, but they had yet another tally waved off the to start the night.

After Michael Hutchinson failed to cover the puck, a scramble found Pastrnak with the puck in the low circle and he fired in what would have been his 10th goal of the season.

The Leafs challenged the play for offsides, and the officials determined Patrice Bergeron had crossed the blue line before the puck, erasing the Bruins would-have-been 1-0 advantage.

It didn’t derail him from putting the Bruins ahead 1-0 without any interference.

With 16:26 gone in the first, the Bruins went to their first power play. Pastrnak took the puck to the net himself and chipped it in between his legs for a 1-0 lead, sans offsides challenge.

Despite two power plays prior, the Leafs knotted things up with 15:37 left in the second.

Kasperi Kapanen was left alone on a zone entry, and he sniped the puck past Rask from the top of the left faceoff dot right off the heels of an early middle frame power play for the Bruins, and right after Anders Bjork stung a shot off the post.

It didn’t take long for Pastrnak to do something to get the Bruins back on the board; again.

This time, he swung a no-look pass from the boards to the edge of the slot, where he connected with Brad Marchand who ripped in the go-ahead goal less than two minutes after the Leafs’ goal.

With 7:06 left in the second, Alex Kerfoot rifled a shot through from the high slot to bring it back to a deadlock yet again, this time 2-2.

With 13:25 left in the third, the secondary scoring did its part.

Ritchie nabbed his second tally of the year with a shot from the edge of the right circle that bounced in the net to put the Bruins back ahead for the third time, 3-2.

Toronto got a power play chance with 4:12 left in the third, but they didn’t make anything of it.

Former Maple Leaf Par Lindholm put the final nail in the coffin with 2:03 left with a rebound off Frederik Andersen for the Bruins fourth goal of the night.

The Bruins host the defending Stanley Cup champion Blues at the Garden on Saturday night before heading to New York to face the Rangers the next day.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/31zuCvX