Maple Leafs hand Bruins frustrating loss
Share
All good things must come to in an end and last night at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, the Bruins eight game win streak against their Northeast Division rivals came to end in frustrating fashion.
The Bruins outshot the Maple Leafs 33-13 in the contest including just four Maple Leaf shots in the final stanza. Despite the 33 shots the Bruins couldn’t find the back of the net until they scored twice in the third after falling behind 3-0, but the two third period goals were too little too late.
Dennis Seidenberg’s second goal in as many games and Andrew Ference’s second of the year was all the Bruins could get against a Toronto team they outscored 5-2 in their previous two meetings heading into last night’s tilt.
The Bruins went with Anton Khudobin in net for the second straight game and got easily the worst performance from the first year Bruin as Khudobin was pulled in the third period after allowing three goals on 11 shots. Tuukka Rask stopped all two shots he saw in relief of Khudobin.
The Bruins had their chances to get themselves back in the game before Seidenberg’s goal, but they just couldn’t get the goals they needed.
“Yeah we had a chance to win this game” said Bruins head coach Claude Julien. “We missed an open net in the first period and hit a couple of posts here and there.”
It was three posts your team hit, Claude.
The Bruins obviously needed production from their forwards and clearly didn’t get it, especially from Milan Lucic. No. 17 had just one hit and failed to register a shot on goal. With Lucic struggling to score, (15 games without a goal) the Bruins need their physical forward to bring his physical game and that too was lacking last night.
For the Leafs, they were certainly happy to finally beat the Bruins.
“It’s good to put those to rest,” said goalie James Reimer. Captain Dion Phaneuf echoed his goalie’s comments.
“They have had our number,” said Phaneuf. “But we felt good about the way we’ve played against them (this year).
The Bruins finished their four-game road trip with a 1-3 record, two of those losses came from the East leading Pittsburgh Penguins. The Bruins managed just six goals on the trip.
The Bruins will have their chance to start a new streak against the Maple Leafs on Monday when the Bruins return home to host the Leafs.