BOSTON — The Bruins beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 2-1 in a shootout Saturday night at TD Garden, picking up two crucial points as they fight for Stanley Cup playoff positioning.
The win keeps the B’s in a third-place tie with the Red Wings in the Atlantic Division, although Detroit has a game in hand. Boston also is tied with the Pittsburgh Penguins for the first wild-card playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
The Bruins have a three-day break before returning to game action Wednesday in Washington against the Capitals.
Here are three takeaways from Bruins-Leafs:
1. Bruins Use New-Look Fourth Line
Veteran center Gregory Campbell was a healthy scratch for the first time in his five-year career with the Bruins. He joined Daniel Paille, who’s been a healthy scratch for six consecutive games, as the extra forwards.
Max Talbot entered the lineup after being a healthy scratch Thursday night against the Red Wings. He played left wing Saturday on a new-look fourth line that included Brett Connolly and Chris Kelly.
David Krejci also returned to right wing on the Patrice Bergeron line after playing center between Loui Eriksson and Carl Soderberg for most of Thursday’s win.
Brett Connolly and Reilly Smith switched spots in the third period as Bruins head coach Claude Julien shortened his bench.
These were Boston’s lines to start the game:
Brad Marchand-Patrice Bergeron-David Krejci
Loui Eriksson-Carl Soderberg-Reilly Smith
Milan Lucic-Ryan Spooner-David Pastrnak
Max Talbot-Chris Kelly-Brett Connolly
2. Bruins Dominate First Period, Don’t Score
The Bruins owned the opening 20 minutes. They dominated puck possession with a 31-10 edge in shot attempts (19-6 in shots on goal) and forced Leafs goaltender James Reimer to make 19 saves. Here’s the shot chart from the first period. You’ll notice Toronto went 4:10 without a shot, from 14:35 through 18:45.
Unfortunately for the Bruins, not many of those shots came with enough traffic in front of the net, and too many pucks were shot into Reimer’s chest. The result was lots of chances but no goals.
3. Tuukka Rask, James Reimer Both Brilliant In Net
Each goaltender played well and gave his team a chance to win.
Reimer faced a whopping 50 shots, but he stood tall in net and made several good saves to keep the Leafs in the game when they were defending in their own zone for large stretches of each period. He finished with 49 saves and a .995 save percentage.
Rask was excellent as well. He made 27 saves on 28 shots for a .964 save percentage, including two sensational stops on Toronto shots from the low slot midway through the third period with the score tied at 1.
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Rask now has given up two goals or fewer in 11 of the last 14 games.
Thumbnail photo via Winslow Townson/USA TODAY Sports Images
