There will be many things that this first round playoff series between the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs will be remembered for when it’s all over.
This could be the series when Jeremy Swayman really took over as the “the guy” between the pipes for the Black and Gold after a dazzling series of winning performances against the Maple Leafs. And the shenanigans between Brad Marchand and Tyler Bertuzzi have been as entertaining as can be, while Marchand has clearly enjoyed the upper hand in the matchup.
Brad Marchand continues to torment Tyler Bertuzzi in this series pic.twitter.com/4rLcSh5jF6
— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) April 28, 2024
There will undoubtedly be plenty of talk about Auston Matthews, William Nylander and Mitch Marner sniping at each other on the bench late in the second period of Saturday night’s 3-1 B’s win in Game 4 over the Leafs at Scotiabank Arena.
Wheels coming off the Leafs as they once again are struggling in the playoffs pic.twitter.com/5vNPgIIQp8
— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) April 28, 2024
“We’re grown men,” said Marner to reporters in Toronto following the game where the video pretty clearly shows Nylander saying “stop [expletive] crying, bro” to one of his longtime teammates. “We’re just talking about plays out there that we all want to make sure we’re 100 percent in. Just a little off-page there. We’re not yelling at each other because we hate each other.”
No, the Leafs are yelling at each other because, once again, it’s the Stanley Cup playoffs and they have zero answers while another team makes special preparations to end their hockey season. Interestingly enough, Matthews wasn’t seen again on the Maple Leafs bench in the third period after those tense moments between members of the “core four” in Toronto’s biggest game of the season.
But the single biggest reason that the Bruins are enjoying a 3-to-1 lead in the best-of-seven playoff series against the Maple Leafs is the special teams’ dominance that Boston has exhibited on display throughout the first-round series. Once again, the Bruins potted a power-play goal in the Game 4 win, and they held the Maple Leafs off the board in their three power-play chances during the pivotal fourth game of the series.
It was really a big swing as Max Domi took an extremely ill-advised offensive zone penalty by cross-checking David Pastrnak in the back as a group of players were grinding in a scrum for the puck along the side boards. It was one of a handful of offensive zone penalties in the first-round playoff series for Toronto and led to a Marchand power play strike that extended Boston’s lead to 2-0 midway through the second period.
“It was a good shift. A couple of hard battles in the corner and we were going to come up with the puck. You know the cross-check is a tough one to take,” said Pastrnak. “For another team, it’s big momentum for their power play, so definitely trying to capitalize on that kind of a look and it was a big goal for us. I’m really proud of our team and how we kept with it and kept playing when they put some pressure on us.”
The Bruins are a scalding hot 6-for-13 on the power play in the series while splitting up their top players into two equal power play groups that are beginning to mix and match with each other during the two minutes of PP time.
“Charlie Coyle was just a monster out there being a bumper [on the power play unit],” said Jim Montgomery. “It’s been something we stress a lot.”
The Bruins' penalty kill is similarly torrid while killing 13-of-14 Maple Leafs power plays during the series.
Not only have the B’s kept Toronto’s power play performers off the board, but they’ve actually used their penalty kill as a weapon-sucking momentum stealer away from Toronto. That special teams' prowess has pushed their home fans to throw down boos on the Leafs players as they struggle to generate offense.
It's been a fascinating thing to watch even as Boston is missing one of their best penalty-killing defensemen in Andrew Peeke, but they adjusted to that loss by bringing Parker Wotherspoon into the fold for Games 3 and 4 in Toronto. Charlie Coyle, Brandon Carlo and Wotherspoon all surpassed three minutes of shorthanded ice time in Game 4 and deserve loads of credit for a Bruins penalty kill group that outworked the Toronto power play while gaining the special teams’ upper hand.
The Black and Gold went into this first-round series with the belief that special teams could be a strength for them.
Toronto’s penalty kill has been one of the NHL’s worst special teams units all season and that has absolutely played out during a Stanley Cup playoff series where the Leafs noticeable lack of discipline is putting them on the PK quite a bit.
The question has been whether the Bruins would have enough juice on the power play to make Toronto pay after struggling down the stretch in the regular season. Separating Charlie McAvoy and Brad Marchand into one unit while putting together a second PP unit centered around Pastrnak has allowed the B’s man advantage, as a whole, to be productive and dangerous while not feeling a crippling level of pressure.
Marchand has a pair of PP goals after essentially going the entire second half of the regular season without a power play score, and Jake DeBrusk has added three power-play goals of his own skating on a unit without Pastrnak as their big shooting target.
The special teams trend will need to continue, obviously, if the Bruins hope to close out the Leafs in five games with a home date at TD Garden on Tuesday night, but there is absolutely no reason to think it won’t give what we’ve seen in four games between Boston and Toronto thus far.