Auston Matthews knows firsthand just how dominant the Boston Bruins’ line of David Pastrnak, Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron can be.
The Maple Leafs center’s line got absolutely steamrolled by the trio in last year’s first-round series against Boston, which Toronto ultimately lost in seven games. But Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy elected to not match up his top line with the Matthews line in the B’s 4-1 Game 1 loss Thursday night.
It’s yet to be determined whether Cassidy will match Bergeron’s line with Matthews’ line, but the center knows that line will come out with more intensity Game 2.
“Yeah it gives you confidence (slowing them down in Game 1), but you also know that I mean they’re going to come out tomorrow and they’re going to be fired up,” Matthews said, as transcribed by WEEI.com. “You know they’re the No. 1 line in the league this year, so you can’t take that for granted because they’ve got veteran guys on that team. And like I said, they’re going to come out (Saturday) night and they’re going to be ready to play, so we’ve got to be ready to play as well.”
The B’s will need to give a stronger effort Saturday night in order to tie the series at a game apiece before heading to Toronto for Games 3 and 4.
