BOSTON — Game 5 of the first-round Stanley Cup playoff series between the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs didn’t come without a little controversy.
The Maple Leafs drew first blood Friday night at TD Garden, as Auston Matthews rifled home a one-timer with 8:27 left in the third period. Matthews’ tally might have been aided by goaltender interference, as Zach Hyman bumped into Tuukka Rask before the Leafs star ripped the go-ahead slap shot.
ICEBREAKER! @AM34 gets the @MapleLeafs on the board.
Stream it here: https://t.co/G9ziycoCrp pic.twitter.com/lssCk8HaWt
— NBC Sports Hockey (@NBCSportsHockey) April 20, 2019
The sequence prompted a closer look at the league’s video-review headquarters in Toronto, which ultimately deemed there was no interference on the play. The Leafs rode the momentum and ultimately picked up a 2-1 win and 3-2 series lead.
Bruce Cassidy disagreed with the no-call, but as he noted after the game, his team had ample time to swing things back its way after the ruling didn’t go in the Bruins’ favor.
“Clearly interferes with Tuukka,” Cassidy said. “It goes to Toronto and they have to make a decision. I just hope they don’t predict whether they thought the goalie could make the save, get across on time, whether it’s interference. It’s either interference or it’s not. …He pushed off Charlie (McAvoy) then backs into Tuukka. From my viewpoint, it certainly looked like goaltender interference. The call didn’t go our way. It’s 1-0 with 8 minutes to go, we have time to get ourselves back in the game and regroup and unfortunately we didn’t do that.”
Rask seemed to believe he would have had a strong chance at making the save had he not been bumped by Hyman.
“I don’t know. I just felt contact so I kind of went after the ref there, let him know that there was contact,” Rask said. “They looked at it, so it’s a goal. I saw him, as soon as he passed it he kind of bumped in my head. That was it, but you know, I trust that they get them right.
“I think I would have gotten a push because I saw the pass was going that way. It just kind of distracted me. It wasn’t a major contact. It happens so quick, you don’t want to start selling it. I guess if I just felt on my ass there it might have been a different story. But yeah, tough.”
The fact of the matter is, the Maple Leafs were the better team Friday night. The Bruins were on the wrong end of the game’s most controversial play, but their loss ultimately falls more on their own shortcomings rather than a decision by the officials.
Here are some other notes from Friday’s Bruins-Maple Leafs Game 5:
— Matthews has been a thorn in Boston’s side all series, collecting four goals through five games. It’s tough to completely neutralize a player of his caliber, but David Krejci knows what the Bruins have to do in order to make things difficult for him.
“He’s a good player. We have to take away his speed, his space and be in his face,” Krejci said. “He’s a good player, he’s going to make plays, so you have to play tight on him and not give him much room in the neutral zone because once he gets his speed, his hands are faster than his speed. It’s tough to slow him down, so you have to make sure you’re on top of him. Make sure he doesn’t get a puck with a lot of speed because he’ll make you pay.”
— Boston left quite a few opportune chances on the table, highlighted by three power plays that went for naught. David Pastrnak lamented the unit’s lack of production, but he’s putting the past in the past.
“We really wanted to score the first, and we had chances that didn’t go our way,” Pastrnak said. “Nothing you can do now about it. Just going to regroup, and big game next game, so we want to bring it back home.”
— Cassidy shuffled his lines in hopes of creating a spark, which led to limited action for David Backes (4:36 of ice time), Chris Wagner (9:20) and Noel Acciari (9:55).
— Friday’s contest mirrored Game 3 in which Toronto excelled at keeping Boston’s go-to scorers at bay. Patrice Bergeron believes the two contests featured a common thread.
“I think they’re doing a good job of keeping us to the outside,” Bergeron said. “We have to find a way to get to the inside a lot more. The goals we score have been from the inside, also some rebounds, some really in tight. I guess there’s no other answers than that. I think we need to get to the inside a little more.”
— Krejci provided Boston’s lone goal with 44 seconds remaining.
