Bruins can't match Maple Leafs' top line, lose 6-4

Steve Conroy, Boston Herald on Jan 4, 2025

Published in Hockey

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The good news for the Boston Bruins on Saturday was that on the final game of their three-game road trip they finally managed to score more than one goal.

The bad news is that they picked the wrong night to have some defensive lapses.

The B’s scratched back from a two-goal deficit and then another one-goal hole but ultimately fell to the Maple Leafs, 6-4, in Toronto, their third straight loss.

The B’s showed a lot of resilience, but rising star Matthew Knies notched a hat trick to lead the Leafs over the B’s. The top line of Knies, Auston Matthews (1-3-4) and Mitch Marner was on the ice for all six of the Leafs goals.

For the third time in three games, the B’s found themselves down going into the first intermission.

The Leafs got on the board early, just 3:29 in. It looked like the B’s were about to gain control of the puck along the boards but Matthews lifted Elias Lindholm’s stick, allowing Marner to gain control of the puck. Marner dished to Jake McCabe coming down from his left point position and the defenseman roofed it over Jeremy Swayman’s blocker arm.

The B’s did have some chances of their own. One came on the first shift of the game when David Pastrnak whistled one off the crossbar. It came back to hit goalie Joseph Woll and was close to rolling over the goal line before Woll yanked it back.

Oliver Wahlstrom also made a nice cut through the slot and had a clean shot but he could not find the space upstairs over Woll.

The B’s had the only power play of the period and all that did was stall any kind of offensive momentum that they may have had going. They did not muster a shot on net as a couple of Pastrnak zone entries were sent back out of the zone.

The teams traded goals in a matter of 12 seconds early in the second period.

Knies gave the Leafs a 2-0 lead on a goal that looked too easy. Nikita Zadorov denied a Knies rush up the right boards but after Charlie McAvoy collected the loose puck, his pass up the left side went right to Matthews. The Leafs’ captain threw it at the net, where Knies had gone to get the deflection for his third goal in as many games against the B’s this year.

But before the two-goal deficit could become too daunting for the goal-starved B’s, they struck back on the next shift on a similarly simple play.

From the right boards, Charlie Coyle fired the puck on net that Woll stopped. Pavel Zacha chopped at the loose puck, bouncing it over to Morgan Geekie, who scored into an open net for his ninth of the year.

Unlike in Washington and in New York, the B’s managed to score a second goal off a late icing call on Toronto. Trent Frederic, struggling to score all season, had jump in his step all game, most likely energized by the sight of his old St. Louis friend Woll in net. And he scored on Woll yet again.

After a Toronto icing late in the period, Frederic won the offensive zone faceoff back to McAvoy and headed to the middle of the ice. Geekie created some space for McAvoy, who fed Frederic in the high slot. Riding an 11-game pointless streak, Frederic snapped his sixth goal of the year over Woll’s blocker with 1:16 left in the second.

The teams traded quick goals again early in the third period, this time 34 seconds apart.

First, Brandon Carlo was in position to stop John Tavares’ pass for Knies but he overskated it, leaving Knies alone with Swayman. Knies lost the puck at first but still managed to sneak a backhander past Swayman at 3:43.

But on the next shift, Pastrnak picked Tavares’ pocket just inside the Toronto blue line and he beat Woll with a crisp wrister from the high slot, his 14th of the season.

Knies completed the hat trick just 1:11 later. Matthews, energized in his first game back since Dec. 20 from an upper body injury, knocked McAvoy off the puck behind the net and fed Knies for his third of the night.

The B’s pulled Swayman with about 2:30 left but they did not mount any attack before Marner scored an empty netter.

But the B’s kept battling. Swayman was pulled again and this time they cashed in, with Zacha sending a backhand dish to Pastrnak for his second of the game with 1:50 remaining inn regulation.

But finally, after the B’s flurried in hopes of the equalizer, Matthews sealed by laying out to poke home the insurance empty-netter with 31 seconds left.

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