After contentious 3rd period, feels like Bruins, Maple Leafs waiting for other shoe to drop taken at TD Garden (Bruins)

(Adam Richins for BSJ)

Bruins

After contentious 3rd period, feels like Bruins, Maple Leafs waiting for other shoe to drop

By Conor Ryan

Dec 9, 2018 • 1:26 am

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In an ideal situation, we’d be focusing on the two points the Bruins secured on Saturday night — the byproduct of a complete effort from a club breaking out of a three-game losing skid and a prolonged stretch of offensive futility.

And yet, in the minutes following Boston’s convincing 6-3 home win over the Toronto Maple Leafs — most of the conversation shifted to a span of 1:02 of regulation.

No goals, no highlight-reel plays. But 72 minutes of penalties — and two questionable hits.

According to Brad Marchand, tensions between the Bruins and Maple Leafs started to boil in the first stanza, when Charlie McAvoy dropped Leafs winger Mitch Marner with a cross-check.

It doesn’t take plenty to spark the B’s and Leafs — two clubs already boasting a surfeit of ill will following a heated postseason battle last spring.

But things finally spilled over at 9:53 in the third period, with Boston already holding steady with a commanding 6-2 lead.

Over a second after McAvoy fired a puck out of danger from behind the Bruins’ net, the 20-year-old defenseman was steamrolled by Leafs winger Zach Hyman — with the second-year skater remaining on the ice following the heavy hit.

While McAvoy, two games removed from a seven-week absence from game action due to a concussion, gathered himself with the help of Boston’s medical staff, Matt Grzelcyk delivered a cross-check of his own to Hyman — with the two dropping the gloves and eventually exiting the contest with a pair of game misconducts.

"When you’re going to go after one of our star players in a game like that, 6-2, he was pissed off because Chucky hit Marner early in the game and he was trying to get a little retribution," Marchand said. "But we’re a family here and we stick up for one another."






“I actually didn’t see it at the time,” Grzelcyk said of the hit on McAvoy. “Just saw it after the game, so it’s obviously something you don’t like to see especially when you kind of have a lead like that. So, just trying to stick up for my teammate there.”


While McAvoy eventually returned to the bench in the closing minutes of regulation, he did not touch the ice — with
Bruce Cassidy
noting that his absence was due to the league-mandated protocol.










It didn’t take very long for the B’s to dish out their own hit following Hyman’s dismissal. A little over a minute later, Bruins fourth liner
Chris Wagner
attempted to square up Leafs top defenseman
Morgan Rielly
with a heavy hit at center ice.


Fellow Leafs blueliner
Ron Hainsey
, clearly taking exception to Wagner’s hit, immediately dropped the gloves and challenged the B’s winger. Ultimately, Wagner was handed a two-minute charging penalty, a five-minute major for fighting and a misconduct for the play, while Hainsey was handed five for his role in the scuffle.




Leafs center
Nazem Kadri,
who traded punches with
Brandon Carlo
earlier in the contest, felt as though Wagner’s hit was questionable given that Wagner went up high to deliver his open-ice hit on Rielly.












So where do we go from here? There’s a good chance that the Department of Player Safety takes the time to review Saturday’s game film — while this third period will likely be fresh in both teams’ minds the next time they meet on Jan. 12.


For
David Backes
,
the way in which the NHL’s departure from on-ice policing and emphasis on supplemental discipline has created an uneven disparity in consequences for the players at fault and the players injured on these plays, the following days will be interesting.


“We’re in a place, we’re in an environment where supplemental discipline is daddy-cop around here," Backes said. "You get your licks at times and you get the right matchup to get your ounce of blood back, but that’s not always the case and so we live with it. … You know, if it’s late and it’s high, if it’s an injury— suspension, suspension, suspension.


“Maybe that tones it down a bit, but maybe the benefit outweighs the drawback of … you know, Zach Hyman gets a suspension when Charlie McAvoy was terribly injured on the play. I mean that’s a good trade for them in the long run, I don’t know. But you know, we need to protect our guys and I think we did a decent job and sent a physical message back.”

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