The Bruins opened the scoring, as Bergeron knocks home a Seguin rebound (Scrivens cannot miss with the poke check there), Clarke "re-sign me" MacArthur lays a beautiful pass to Kadri, who taps it past Khudobin to continue his point-per-game pace. Seguin, wide open, rips one past Scrivens because of course he does. The game winning goal is scored when Kostka blocks a shot, which deflects right towards Krejci and he puts it in to a wide open net. McClement would tip in a Grabovski shot to bring the Leafs within one, but Seguin would get the empty netter to clinch. Your game in six:
The Leafs did a better job of staying with the Bruins than usual. They outshot the bruins, and were only outchanced by two. Failure to convert on the 5-on-3 in the first, combined with a couple of defensive breakdowns (I'm still trying to figure out how Tyler Seguin got so open) shot the team in the foot. I think the Leafs were also hurt by their lack of a puck-moving/strong-skating defenseman, as the Bruins were occasionally very effective at hemming the Leafs in their own zone, without a breakout pass or a player to really jump up and clear the line.
Scrivens did a "good enough" job, and as usual, while he didn't look great to the eye (post shot, rebounds helped him out), he was kind of victimized on his goals against. Seguin had a wide open path to the net, Krejci had a gift (his goal was a great example of "bad puck luck").
Grabovski probably could've used more ice time, but he did take a majority of his faceoffs in the offensive zone (FO report doesn't report even strength) - I wonder if Carlyle believes the PP opportunities are evening out Grabovski's even strength defensive-zone assignment. Phil Kessel and Nazem Kadri were up over 17:30 this game, with Kadri actually playing more at even strength than Kessel.
Holzer's minutes were down, which was good, and Franson's were up, so it'll be good to see if he can handle a little more competition and a little more icetime while still remaining productive. It's games like this that I wish TimeOnIce.com's shift charts were working.
Not much to say - the Bruins are a good team and they capitalized on the Leafs' defensive breakdowns. Maybe it wouldn't have happened with more sensible D-pairings, or with Reimer in, or without a game the night before, but I'm okay sticking within two chances, one goal, and a couple shots of the Boston Bruins. The Leafs play the Bruins twice more this month, and have to games coming up against the Penguins. It's not going to be an easy stretch, and it continues Saturday night at home against Pittsburgh.
