Auston Matthews scored with 7:54 left in regulation to cap a three-point night and lift the Toronto Maple Leafs to a 3-2 win over the host Boston Bruins in Game 2 of an Eastern Conference first-round playoff series on Monday.
Max Domi had a goal and an assist and John Tavares also scored for Toronto, which returns home with the best-of-seven series tied at 1-1 ahead of Game 3 on Wednesday.
Toronto’s Ilya Samsonov made 27 saves, including 10 in the third period.
Matthews logged his fourth career three-point playoff game, tied for the third most in Maple Leafs history. He had one goal and two assists.
“There were some things kind of piling up that weren’t really going our way, but the guys stayed with it,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “Great effort here on the road tonight. Really good team win.
“Auston was all over the stat sheet tonight. In so many regards he’s affecting the game positively for us, but to me, just the way he worked, the way he competed (was impressive).”
Morgan Geekie and David Pastrnak scored for Boston, which led 2-1 after one period.
Bruins goalie Linus Ullmark stopped 30 shots as the team continued the goalie-rotation plan it utilized in the regular season. Jeremy Swayman started and won Game 1.
Matthews made a high-class play for the winning goal, gliding down the slot for a top-shelf breakaway goal after gloving down Domi’s high stretch pass and staying onside as he moved ahead of Boston defenseman Charlie McAvoy.
The goal stood up as the decider as the Bruins were unable to take advantage of a power play when the Maple Leafs’ Tyler Bertuzzi was called for slashing at 13:57.
“I didn’t think our urgency was where it needed to be tonight to prevail,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “We didn’t win enough wall battles to get out of our end successfully.”
Prior to Matthews’ goal, Toronto had not led Boston in any regular-season or playoff matchup this season (five games).
“We’ve had to (come from behind) quite a bit against them,” Tavares said. “It’s not a great recipe for success, but I think there’s just a lot of belief and trust in that locker room in one another. Just staying with it, it’s a 60-minute hockey game for a reason.”
Geekie netted the opening goal 10:18 into the first. He finished a pretty sequence with Jake DeBrusk and Brad Marchand for the power-play tally, shooting from the bottom of the left circle to put the Bruins ahead.
It took only 14 seconds for the visitors to respond. Domi picked up the carom of Matthews’ shot off the crossbar near the blue paint and tucked it between Ullmark’s pad and the left post.
Boston took a 2-1 lead with 7.8 seconds left in the first period. An uncovered Pastrnak took Pavel Zacha’s no-look pass to the slot and fired a snap shot past Samsonov.
Toronto found a tying goal with 1:34 left in the second period. Tavares fired a turnaround wrister past Ullmark’s blocker.
“I actually liked our second period until we took the penalties,” Montgomery said. “Their power play got rolling. They get juice from their power play. I thought, in the third period, they were better than we were.”
Both goaltenders came up with key saves to keep the 2-2 game early in the third, including Samsonov sprawling to deny a Marchand one-timer.
Bruins defenseman Andrew Peeke didn’t finish the game due to injury, but there was no official update on his condition.
–Field Level Media
