Bruins should take solace in fact that Maple Leafs’ defense is still a glaring weakness

The Bruins should be mighty frustrated on their plane ride back down to Boston following a 4-3 overtime loss to the Maple Leafs on Saturday night. 

Even after securing a hard-earned point against a divisional foe for the second game in a row, Bruce Cassidy’s crew has to feel like they let another victory slip through their grasp — as yet another third-period rally was negated by Morgan Rielly’s second goal of the night at 3:54 in the extra period. 

Clawing back from another third-period deficit is another feather for a shorthanded B’s team to add to their cap in the early going of the 2019-20 season, for sure.

But a loss is still a loss, and this one stands as a particularly tough pill to swallow after secondary scoring finally arrived by way of goals from Jake DeBrusk and Danton Heinen. 

And if we were to take a look at the state of the defense matched up against Boston, the B’s have to be awfully steamed that they were only able to light the lamp three times against another porous Leafs' blue line.



Saturday's bout at Scotiabank Arena may not provide a full preview of what all parties should expect from the first-round playoff matchup that once again seems inevitable between these two Original Six franchises.

After all, both the Bruins and Leafs were without their second-line centers in David Krejci and John Tavares, while a key bottom-six cog in Joakim Nordstrom was also held out of game action due to an upper-body injury. Travis Dermott, the 22-year-old Toronto defenseman that averaged 16:50 of ice time last year, was also out of commission while recovering from offseason shoulder surgery.

Still, unless Mike Babcock's club is expecting Dermott to completely transform its D corps, the Bruins got their first look at what was expected to be a much improved Toronto blue line on Saturday.

Already set to reap the benefits from deploying a rugged, top-four D-man in Jake Muzzin over the course of a full season, the Leafs also switched out Jake Gardiner (a combined minus-8 in his last two Game 7 outings at TD Garden) with a two-way blueliner in Tyson Barrie.

With Barrie serving as a perfect fit for Toronto's aggressive style of play,  Muzzin adding some thump and cleaning up opposing chances in the D zone and Rielly orchestrating a potent offense from the point, it would seem as though Kyle Dubas might have finally assembled the personnel necessary to launch an extended playoff push.

Well, at least it looks good on paper — compared to some of the cardboard cutouts Toronto used to roll out on defense. But on the ice, the Bruins still very much had their way against Toronto's D corps on Saturday night.

Boston labored in the opening 20 minutes when it came to both clearing pucks out of its end and creating sustained O-zone time around Frederik Andersen — a fatal combination that allowed the opportunistic Leafs to build themselves a 2-1 lead going into the first intermission.

But for the final 40 minutes of regulation, the B's followed through with the tried-and-true strategy against Toronto, with the likes of Patrice Bergeron and Charlie Coyle forcing the puck down low in the O-zone and challenging the Leafs' defense to try and put a halt to their extended shifts.

"We just had to be harder with the puck, getting pucks back.," Cassidy said. "In the O-zone, I thought we were one and done. But as the game went along, in the second and third period, we weren't. We were harder on the puck. It started late in the period with Coyle's play. He kept possession.

"We know that, listen — Toronto's got a fast team, their D jump up the ice. You have to play against them in their end, to a certain extent, to have some level of success. We finally started doing that, we drew some penalties, now that can give us some success. That's the formula and we finally got around to it."

As the pressure mounted down Toronto's side of the ice, so did the scoring chances for Boston. In the second and third periods alone, the B's tilted the ice firmly in their favor against their rival — holding a 49-25 edge in shot attempts and a 26-12 advantage in shots on goal.

Heinen and David Pastrnak managed to beat Andersen in the final period of regulation to force overtime, but the Leafs netminder was hung out to dry throughout the home stretch, with Boston compiling 10 high-danger scoring chances alone in the second and third periods.

Given how much secondary-scoring woes have plummeted Boston's offense to 22nd in the league in terms of scoring output (2.75 goals per game), Cassidy has to be pleased with the amount of quality looks that players like DeBrusk (three 5v5 individual high-danger shots), Chris Wagner (1  hi-danger chance), Brett Ritchie (1  hi-danger chance) and Coyle (1  hi-danger chance) were all able to generate against the opposition on Saturday.

And — to the surprise of very few — Boston's buzzsaw of a top-line toyed with whatever shutdown option Babcock threw at them.

Along with Pastrnak racking up his 36th and 37th points over his last 25 games against the Maple Leafs (yes, I had to triple-check that stat), his line with Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand also generated 14 shot attempts and seven shots on goal during their 10:43 of 5v5 TOI.

Now where have we seen this before — A dominant top line for Boston cashing in against a downtrodden Leafs' defensive unit? It's only played out in each of the last two failed postseasons for Toronto, and things don't seem that much improved in 2019-20.

Ok —for a moment, let’s be realistic. 

The Leafs are going to be in the playoff picture, and deservedly so. This is a very talented roster, and had Toronto managed to get over the hump and beat Boston last April, the case could be made that its top-six talent and offensive firepower would have been enough to carry it all the way to the Stanley Cup Final. 

But alas, those defensive deficiencies sealed Toronto's fate last spring. And judging on what we've seen so far, they'll likely be the primary culprit if another early playoff exit befalls them again in 2020.

Like I said, we're only being realistic here.