BOSTON — The Boston Bruins fell to the Toronto Maple Leafs, 6-4, on Tuesday at TD Garden. In doing so, they ended a four-game winning streak and also fell behind the Leafs in the Atlantic Division standings after entering the night even with 87 points each.
The final score doesn’t necessarily reflect what occurred during the game, considering the Bruins trailed 6-1 in the second period. But after the loss, head coach Bruce Cassidy and Bruins players expressed their disappointment with the outcome.
“It’s a loss, a home loss,” Cassidy said. “They were clearly better than us, to a team that we may see down the road. So it’s disappointing in that regard. We’ll go back to work tomorrow, let’s see how we respond Thursday. But it’s disappointing we weren’t better.”
Curtis Lazar, who scored in the third period as Boston began to come back, said he thought the Leafs had more energy Tuesday.
“I just thought they were more hungry tonight. It’s a good lesson for our team to keep pushing here down the stretch,” Lazar said. “We’re going to get them again during the regular season and we’ll hopefully cross paths later on. It’s a learning curve for our team, I guess you could say.”
The Bruins will get one more shot at the Maple Leafs before any potential postseason meeting, as the sides are set to meet in the regular season finale on April 29 in Toronto.
Here are more notes from Tuesday’s Bruins-Maple Leafs game:
— Tuesday’s game marked the first regular-season win for Toronto at TD Garden since Nov. 11, 2017.
— Despite a three-goal first period, Cassidy said he did not consider pulling Jeremy Swayman for Linus Ullmark earlier than he actually did, swapping the netminders to start the third period as the Leafs led 6-2.
“He deserves a chance to sort of go and get a big save for us, because we’re going to need one,” Cassidy said. “You’re probably going to have to take more chances, maybe not right away, but somewhere along the line in the second period to get back in the game. It just seemed like we broke down in front of him and it just was going down behind tonight.”
Swayman ended the night with 19 saves, while Ullmark, who will start Thursday, did not allow any more damage on seven shots faced.
— Cassidy said the Bruins will be making some lineup changes heading into Thursday’s game, though this game wasn’t “the end-all be-all” in that decision “but it certainly accelerated the process.”
— The Bruins are back in action Thursday, hosting the New Jersey Devils at TD Garden with a 7 p.m. ET puck drop. You can watch the game, as well as pregame and postgame coverage, live on NESN.
