Your Boston Bruins welcomed in the Toronto Maple Leafs to the TD Garden for their first matchup of this young season. Regulation time wasn’t enough to put this one to bed, but the Bruins got the job done in overtime winning 4-3 after doing everything in their power to give this one away in the closing minutes of regulation.
If you haven’t been following along, the Bruins have not been off to their most blistering start. In fact, it’s been downright ugly to watch at times. An extended public he said/we said in signing Jeremy Swayman where the Bruins management did their best to paint their young netminder as the bad guy. A complete lack of puck management to the point where it looked as if the team as a whole was trying to give the puck to the competition like friendship bracelets. Combine that with some lackluster production from their offensive stars and some questionable defensive play on the back end added up to some f’ugly hockey. Oh yeah, and the head coach seemed to be on an island yelling for help to no avail and then chose to rip his captain on the bench to set an example? No bueno.
Things weren’t humming along for the hometown team here in the Hub of Hockey.
But you know what you need for a get right night? A visit from the Leafs. You remember them right? The annual springtime punching bag of the Bruins? You mean those blue and white squids whose play on the ice has an entire plaza of Canadians crying into their poutine?
Could it be that we’ve stumbled into some type of fix-all for every situation where people need their mojo back? Could this be some type of vibe-reset magic elixir? Could beating Toronto fix more things than just the fortunes of our heroes in the Black and Gold?
Fighting with your significant other: pop on a TOR/BOS game 7, light a couple of candles and you’ll be back in that loving feeling in no time.
Kids fighting? Fire up the DVR of any playoff series featuring the Leafs and Bruins since 1959 (yep, that’s the last time TOR beat BOS in a playoff series), and those brats will be doing their own Zombie dance all over the rec-room.
Could this work for Tom and Jerry? Elmer and Bugs?
In these divided times in our nation, I feel the one thing that we can all get behind is how much everyone hates the Leafs. From their horrendous asset and cap management, to the way the league fawns over them, to the fact that their superstar (now captain) sat out of last year’s playoffs due to.. checks notes… tummy issues last spring is frankly embarrassing. Look how far this once proud franchise has fallen since the days of Captain Crunch: Wendel Clark.
I mean to go from this…
To this???
So the Leafs came into Boston at just the right time. Let’s roll some clips!
Pasta on the PP to tie it at 1
Brazeau with the response
Then Kastelic with the go ahead goal less than a min later
A defensive lapse let Matthews squid his way untouched into the BOS zone to tie the game late. Say what you want about how the D has been playing, but Swayman has been dialed.
And then in overtime, in the big moment, with a flair for the dramatic.. who else but #63?
The Bruins host the Flyers on Tue night. Look for a new podcast out this weekend where we’ll break down the entire NHL. You can find all of our pods here and on every platform as well as YouTube.
One game won’t fix/save a season, but it sure helps get the boys feeling good about themselves. In Sway we trust, it was a good night to have a good night.
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