NHL Playoffs: Bruins Take Game Four 3-1, Marner Scores Lone Goal | 4/27/2024

Maple Leafs lineup against the Bruins:

Bertuzzi – Matthews – Domi

Knies – Tavares – Marner

Nylander – Holmberg – Jarnkrok

Robertson – Kampf – Reaves

Rielly – Lyubushkin

Benoit – McCabe

Edmundson – Brodie

Samsonov

Woll

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   Late into the first period with 4:51 left on the clock – James van Riemsdyk opened the scoring to put the Bruins in a 1-0 lead. He made a backhanded deke to beat Ilya Samsonov after the puck had bounced to him in the left circle after an attempted clearing pass by Ryan Reaves had gone along the right boards hit off Mason Lohrei’s stick, and then bounced to van Riemsdyk.

   Brad Marchand went on to pass Cam Neely for the most career playoff goals in Bruins history when he struck a one-timer off Charlie McAvoy’s pass below the right face-off dot on a power play at 11:40 of the middle frame. With about 40 seconds remaining in the second, David Pastrnak increased Boston’s lead to 3-0. Marchand had gotten a loose puck past T.J. Brodie and passed to Pastrnak, who then put a one-timer past Ilya Samsonov during a 2-on-1.

   Ilya Samsonov had been pulled after allowing the three goals on 17 shots through the first 40 minutes, and Joseph Woll made five saves in relief in the final frame. Auston Matthews did not return to the game after the second period due to an undisclosed issue… he had one shot on goal in 14:16.

   Mitch Marner cut it to 3-1 with an absolute beauty to finally get the Maple Leafs on the board early into the third at 14:17. Marner sent a backhanded shot past Jeremy Swayman after a rebound came to him when he had been at the right dot, and then skated through the slot for the 3-1 final.

David Pastrnak on the team and Brad Marchand: “Really proud of how our team kept playing. We stuck with it even though they had the pressure and scored a goal. We went right back to our game, and stuck with our process and plan,” – “How you said, he was outstanding the last two games here. He creates so much for our team… he’s all over the ice, he’s killing for us, he’s playing big minutes, and he got a couple of goals on the power play. He’s our captain, and he definitely led us the right way the last two games. It’s easy to follow when your captain is doing that.”

James van Riemsdyk on the win and finally scoring a goal: “These rivalry games like this are so much fun to play in… to get a goal and a winning effort always is a lot of fun,” – “Towards the second half of the year, I felt a little snake-bit at times. I like to think I was saving them for the times in the playoffs, so I’ll definitely take it if that was the trade-off. You just try to stick with it, have a good process day in and day out, and not get too far ahead of yourself. You just take it one day at a time and try to take advantage of every opportunity you get.”

Mitch Marner on the game overall: “Obviously, not good enough for the first 40… special teams again. I thought in the third we got it going a little bit better. More pucks North, more o-zone play, but we didn’t do a good enough job in the o-zone of getting pucks off the walls,” – “We’re grown men – We’re talking about plays out there that we just want to make sure we’re all one-hundred percent on, and we know what we’re doing, just a little off page there. We’re not yelling at each other because we hate each other, we just want to all be on the same page to help each other out to try to get the best offensive chance, and it didn’t work out that one opportunity.”

William Nylander on what went wrong for the Maple Leafs and the loss: “I think we made a couple of mistakes and they capitalized on that. So, that’s the way it goes and we got to battle back,” – “We got more in the third. I think we’re playing a little bit more aggressively, trying to get pucks to the middle of the ice and get scoring chances through the slot… So, I think that’s going to have to be a focus for the next game.”

Notes:

– Brad Marchand not only scored the goal to pass Cam Neely for the most career playoff goals in Bruin’s history, he also recorded an assist to help pull the Bruins through for the victory.

  In the four games so far, Marchand has recorded a total of eight points (three goals, five assists)… Marchand also joined Ray Bourque (46) as the only Bruins players in team history to have 40 multi-point playoff games.

– The Bruins have had seven of eight victories against the Maple Leafs this season, including playoffs. They’ve held them to seven goals in the four playoff games so far, and they’re 13-for-14 (92.9%) on the penalty kill against the Leaf’s power play (seventh in the NHL, 24.0%, in the regular season)…

– Making his return after missing the first three games of playoffs – William Nylander had three shots in 22:05 of ice time.

– T.J. Brodie was minus-2 in 17:10 and had two shots after he had been a healthy scratch for the first three games.