After 82 regular season games, the Bruins finally have their playoff opponent.
A mostly JV Bruins’ squad dropped a 5-2 decision to a similarly assembled Toronto Maple Leaf lineup on Friday at Scotiabank Arena, earning the Bruins a date with the Carolina Hurricanes. The ‘Canes, of course, swept the season series, 3-0, by a combined score of 16-1. But with the way the Bruins approached Friday’s regular-season finale, it doesn’t appear that they feared Carolina any more than than they would have the Leafs, who also swept the season series against the Bruins and would have been the other potential opponent if the Bruins could have beaten them on Friday.
In the end, it was decided the rest for the big guns was far more important than attempting to cherry-pick an opponent.
The Bruins, sitting five of their top six forwards and three of their top four defensemen, started out just fine. The third line, the Bruins de facto first line on Friday, got on the board just 1:10 into the game. Trent Frederic jammed home a loose puck between Erik Kallgren’s pads for his eighth of the season.
That was it for Bruins highlights in the first.
The Leafs scored three times to go into the break up 3-1. Marc McLaughlin had a rough period. First, he clipped Mark Giordano in the face with his stick and drew blood, earning a double minor. Three seconds into the second penalty Ilya Mikheyev deflected home a Giordano shot to tie the game at 3:51.
The Leafs took the lead on a second McLaughlin miscue. Carrying the puck out high in the offensive zone, McLaughlin got stripped of the puck by William Nylander, who took off on a breakaway. Nylander backhand-to-forehand and tucked it around Jeremy Swayman’s left pad for the 2-1 lead.
Then the B’s bugaboo, the last-minute goal, raised its ugly head again. With time ticking down, Jack Studnicka’s weak clear attempt was stopped by Morgan Rielly at the left point. Rielly’s shot was tipped past Swayman by Nicholas Abruzzese with 6.7 seconds left in the period.
A scary moment occurred early in the second period. With a head of steam going, Jake DeBrusk tried to reach around Justin Holl for a loose puck, but Holl bumped him. DeBrusk lost his balance and crashed heavily into the boards back-first. As his stick went flying, it appeared as though he may have been injured. But after being attended to by the medical staff, DeBrusk skated off under his own power and did not miss a shift.
Late in the period, things got a little nasty. Tomas Nosek cross-checked Timothy Liljegren in the back near the boards, earning two minutes. Rielly didn’t like it and went after Nosek, getting a roughing penalty that he’d surely take in that situation every time even though it wiped out a Leafs’ power-play.
The Bruins went into the second intermission with the same 3-1 deficit.
Nylander notched his second to give the Leafs a 4-1 lead at 8:00 to just about salt it away. The Bruins had a goal — and Nick Foligno’s 500th NHL point — taken off the board a couple of minutes later because off an offside challenge that was successful.
DeBrusk did get another Bruins goal, however. In fact, it was the Bruins' third power-play goal in two games when DeBrusk buried his 25th with 7:11 left in the third. But the Leafs’ Pierre Engvall finished it off with an empty netter.
