BOSTON — Another item checked off the list.
As well as the Bruins have played this season, they might have been a little closer to first place in the Atlantic Division if they’d done a little better against the third-place team.
The B’s made up for that on Saturday night at TD Garden, ending a six-game losing streak to the Toronto Maple Leafs that stretched back to last season via a 4-1 decision.
The Bruins, who dropped both ends of a road-home series to the Leafs in mid-November, got goals from Patrice Bergeron, David Pastrnak and Torey Krug, the latter two during power plays, before Tim Schaller hit an empty net with 1:39 to play.
Tuukka Rask extended his points streak to 21 games (19-0-2) with a 23-save effort, as the second-place B’s pushed their lead over the Maple Leafs back to five points, with four games in hand.
The Maple Leafs brought a four-game winning streak to the Garden that included consecutive shutouts over the Islanders and Rangers. The Bruins, 15-1-4 over their previous 20 games. They had also won 10 straight over Atlantic Division opponents.
The game marked the return of rookie defenseman Charlie McAvoy, who underwent a procedure to treat an abnormal heart rhythm on Jan. 22. McAvoy returned in 12 days and missed only four games.
The comeback didn’t start so well. He accidentally tipped a puck past Rask at 8:03 of the first period, allowing the Maple Leafs to make it a 1-1 game. McAvoy, pressed into penalty-killing duty with fellow defenseman Brandon Carlo serving an interference penalty and Kevan Miller (upper body injury) out of the lineup, tried unsuccessfully to control a Mitchell Marner shot that Sean Kuraly had partially blocked and was going wide.
The Bruins had gone ahead, 1-0, on Bergeron’s team-leading 22nd goal of the season at the 4:29 mark.
Bergeron victimized Leafs defenseman Nikita Zaitsev on the play, first by finishing a hit behind Toronto’s net as Zaitsev tried to make a breakout pass. The B’s kept the Leafs hemmed in until Danton Heinen — still substituting for Brad Marchand, who served the fourth of a five-game NHL suspension — fed Bergeron the puck for a shot from the left circle.
Pastrnak, who began the second period by sweating out his penalty for goalie interference, later put the B’s ahead on a power play. Pastrnak’s 21st of the season came at 10:38 of the second, after he passed Leo Komarov, and then Ron Hainsey, to a Krug pass that had been deflected in the neutral zone. As he neared the goal line, Pastrnak snapped a sharp-angled shot that hit Frederik Andersen’s left arm and squeezed inside the near post.
The Bruins’ second power play unit it made it 3-1 before the period ended. David Krejci waited for a seam to open and found Austin Czarnik, who had been recalled from AHL Providence in the morning, at the point, and Czarnik sent the puck down to the right circle. Krug pounded a one-timer from there to the short side for his eighth goal of the season, 3:13 before intermission.