It wasn’t always pretty, but the Boston Bruins secured the result needed against a Maple Leafs team they’ve dominated over the last few years. And it was a major piece of help from their team captain Brad Marchand, who rose to the occasion when everybody needed it with an overtime game-winner in an imperfect 4-3 overtime victory over the Maple Leafs at TD Garden on Saturday night.
It was a chaotic set of events in OT as they so often can be as a Bruins turnover led to Auston Matthews circling back deep in his own zone, and subsequently turning the puck over with a blind pass thrown off the boards as Marchand pressured the puck. David Pastrnak picked it up and sped toward the net, wound up for a big shot and then both Marchand and Pastrnak converged on the rebound at the Toronto net.
Marchand from Pasta and Matthews in OT pic.twitter.com/WZa5VNdwwb
— Mr. Tenkrat (@PeterTenkrat) October 27, 2024
It was a bit hard to tell which player scored, but Marchand was credited with the backhanded shovel into the net for the game-winner. It was exactly the kind of big moment from a Bruins leader that is required in these times of turmoil, and it – at least temporarily – puts off some of the questions dogging a hockey club that still isn’t playing anywhere close to their potential ceiling.
“You could tell how happy the bench was when he scored that goal,” said Jim Montgomery. “He’s our leader, he’s someone who embodies what it is to be a Bruin in the right way -- the way he carries himself, on the ice, off the ice, everything. And he’s our captain.”
The goal and the win were both big because it takes some of the building heat off Montgomery after a really sluggish start to the season, and changes the conversation from the bench fireworks between head coach and captain a week ago in Utah.
For Marchand’s part, it was something bordering on relief as he finally got on the board in the ninth game of the season that may quiet some of his critics. The 36-year-old is off to a slow start this season coming off a summer where he had three different surgeries and that has been at least part of the story in a mediocre 4-4-1 team start to the season.
But one can see that the results are coming for Marchand and that the B’s showed on Saturday night that they are more than capable of still playing the right way when the mood strikes them.
“It was nice for the group to get rewarded for playing the right way,” said Marchand. “Sometimes you do it for a period or two, and it doesn’t go the way you want it to, and you switch it up and get into bad habits. We didn’t do that tonight when they scored late. We just continued to play the right way, and it paid off.
“It’s one game, and it’s not going to completely turn things around. But it’s a great way to realize that if we play the right way, we’re a good team. That’s a great group over there, a great offense, and it’s a great way to start building our foundation and understand the way we need to play to have success.”
Now it becomes a challenge of repeating that kind of effort on a consistent basis and shedding some of the undisciplined play, poor puck management, soft defensive play and general lack of urgency that has plagued this Bruins team thus far this season. That is a fairly weighty challenge for a team that has realty struggled out of the gate and now has a lot of eyes cast on them wondering what is wrong with a hockey club that’s got plenty of talent after investing heavily in the roster this summer.
But on Saturday night, Marchand reminded everybody that he is always up to that challenge, and he most often plays his best hockey when his back is up against the wall with something to prove.
ONE-TIMERS
*It wasn’t the big shakeup that it feels like might end up coming for the Bruins, but they did make a move this week by placing big forward Riley Tufte in waivers. The 26-year-old former first-round pick did not move the dial at all in a couple of regular season appearances, including one where he took two penalties and didn’t factor at all into anything offensively. This came after a passable training camp/preseason where he scored a goal early in the exhibition season but wasn’t anywhere close to one of Boston’s best players.
Clearly Tufte hasn’t panned out in the way that somebody like Cole Koepke has for the B’s this season, and being waived and sent down to Providence is a consequence of that. But this also leaves the Bruins with a little over $1 million in salary cap space, and the room under the cap to potentially sign Tyler Johnson after he’s spent most of the month of October in limbo.
The 34-year-old Johnson had a strong preseason and looks like a player who can help the Black and Gold, and he may get that chance sooner rather than later after Tufte failed to seize an early chance on the NHL roster.
*Really interesting situation with Marchand, who thoroughly debunked rumors that he’s close to signing a three-year contract extension after Hockey Night in Canada’s Elliotte Friedman mentioned that during Saturday night’s broadcast. The Bruins captain repeatedly called the report “false” and said that he’s going to continue to operate without anything going public about his contract situation.
“Elliotte likes talking about me this week, eh? I mean, I mentioned this before. I’m not big about talking about contract stuff in the media,” said Marchand. “I’m not going to do it — but I mean, that report from Elliotte is false.
“But I am not going to talk [about] my contract stuff to the media. If I was signing a three-year extension, it’d be signed. Clearly, Elliotte is just wrong there. So that’s about it.”
*We’ll keep a running tally of the Bruins penalty situation for the rest of the season during the weekly NHL notes. The discipline was a little better on Saturday night against the Maple Leafs in victory, but they still lead the entire league with 118 penalty minutes and lead by a wide margin with 48 minor penalties called against them this season. They are one of only four NHL teams with 40 plus minor penalties called against them this season along with the San Jose Sharks, Toronto Maple Leafs and Los Angeles Kings. This is not a sustainable trend if the Bruins want to be a playoff team and hope to be a legit Stanley Cup contender when things get settled in the postseason.