BOSTON — They started the game they wanted, but not the series.
The Bruins faded after a strong start in Game 1 of their best-of-7 first-round playoff series against the Maple Leafs on Thursday night, dropping a 4-1 decision and at least temporarily losing home ice advantage.
The B’s dominated the first half of the first period and took a 1-0 lead, but then began committing costly turnovers that played into the talented Leafs’ hands. After tying the game [...]
BOSTON — They started the game they wanted, but not the series.
The Bruins faded after a strong start in Game 1 of their best-of-7 first-round playoff series against the Maple Leafs on Thursday night, dropping a 4-1 decision and at least temporarily losing home ice advantage.
The B’s dominated the first half of the first period and took a 1-0 lead, but then began committing costly turnovers that played into the talented Leafs’ hands. After tying the game before the first period ended, the Maple Leafs scored twice in the second, both goals coming on breakaways.
Game 2 is Saturday night at TD Garden (NBC, WBZ-FM 98.5).
A back-and-forth first period ended with the score tied, 1-1.
Behind strong forechecking that kept the Maple Leafs from making clean exits, the Bruins spent the bulk of the first 10 minutes in Toronto territory and limited the Leafs to occasional chances in transition. Charlie McAvoy handled two of them flawlessly, getting back on one occasion to take John Tavares’ options away in the right circle, and sealing off Zach Hyman on a later rush into the left circle.
The Bruins got the only power play of the first period, when William Nylander high-sticked Connor Clifton after the rookie defenseman took him out along the boards in the defensive zone. The Bruins used the manpower advantage to grab a 1-0 lead.
Patrice Bergeron the goal, the 32nd of his playoff career. Torey Krug and Brad Marchand traded passes on the left side as Bergeron drifted unnoticed into the right circle, where Marchand found him for a clear shot at a largely uncovered net.
The B’s didn’t generate much after that, though, and made some careless plays with the puck. Noel Acciari was stripped at center ice by John Tavares, who took the puck into the left circle for a shot that Tuukka Rask (29 saves) stopped and smothered, but the Leafs went ahead on the ensuing faceoff.
Tavares won the draw from Bergeron and pushed the puck to Jake Muzzin for a shot from the left point that was deflected, hit the post to Rask’s right, and then bounced into the opposite circle. Mitchell Marner got a shot through traffic from there to tie it with 3:16 left in the period.
Not even an early second-period power play could get the Bruins to clean up their act. A mishandled puck at the blue line gave Marner a breakaway that Jake DeBrusk thwarted by tripping Marner from behind, but Marner was awarded a penalty shot and beat Rask after a series of fakes at 2:47.
The B’s went on to pepper Frederik Anderssen (34 saves) with 21 shots in the middle period, but were sloppy enough to give up 15, along with numerous odd-man rushes.
The Bruins’ best line in the second was the new trio of Marcus Johansson, Charlie Coyle and Danton Heinen, which generated several in-close opportunities off strong puck possession in the offensive zone. A rare chance off a rush, however, led to the Maple Leafs’ third goal.
Defenseman Matt Grzelcyk, after having his feed to Coyle on a 2-on-1 break blocked into a corner, tried to help the B’s retrieve it there, and wasn’t back in time to defend Nazem Kadri’s pass to William Nylander, who had taken advantage of the lack of coverage at the point to skate out of the defensive zone unchecked. Nylander’s breakaway bid hit Rask’s stick, but got through his pads to make it 3-1 with only 1:35 left in the period. It stayed there because Rask stopped a Tavares breakaway with 37.9 seconds to go.
Tavares closed the scoring with an empty-net goal with 1:19 remaining.