The Boston Bruins will be going for their third consecutive shutout Tuesday night when they visit the sputtering Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Bruins defeated the Seattle Kraken 2-0 at home on Sunday with Jeremy Swayman stopping 23 shots. That followed a 3-0 road win over the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday, when Joonas Korpisalo made 20 saves. The Bruins had lost five of six before the shutouts.
“Our maturity as a team as far as game management still needs to grow, but we’re winning games now,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “You don’t give up goals and your goaltenders are playing as well as they did, it’s a good step. We’re heading in the right direction. November’s been much better than October.”
The Maple Leafs have dropped two in a row, both on the road. They lost 2-1 in overtime to the Minnesota Wild on Sunday and 4-2 to the St. Louis Blues on Saturday.
“Obviously, not high-scoring, but that’s OK. I think we want to get comfortable playing in those games,” Toronto defenseman Morgan Rielly said after the game on Sunday. “It’s unfortunate we don’t get the extra point, but we’re moving in the right direction.”
The Maple Leafs have been unable to score consistently, with two goals or fewer in six of 13 games this season.
Their only goal on Sunday was scored by William Nylander on the power play. Toronto is 4-for-40 (10 percent) on the power play this season after going 1-for-2 on Sunday. Last season, they were 57-for-238 (23.9 percent) with the man advantage. Toronto is now 1-for-20 on the power play on the road.
“That’s good for the confidence, to see one go in,” said Toronto’s Auston Matthews, who set up Nylander’s ninth goal of the season. “The last couple of games, we’ve been moving (the puck) pretty well. Hopefully that gets us rolling and we continue to make that a big factor in our game.”
Matthews, who had a league-leading 69 goals last season, was ruled out for the game on Tuesday morning due to an upper-body injury.
Toronto did get strong goaltending from Anthony Stolarz, who stopped 31 shots against the Wild.
“We committed really hard to playing a heavy game and blocking shots and trying to eliminate their scoring chances,” Stolarz said.
The Bruins aim to build on their past two games, but Montgomery wants more consistency before he will be satisfied.
“I’m not there yet,” he said after practice Monday. “Just being honest, there’s too many lapses in our game right now. We’re not a 60-minute team. We need to continue to build on it. We’re better but we’re not where we need to be.”
Montgomery is not afraid to make a point. He benched one of his stars, David Pastrnak, in the third period on Sunday.
“Coach’s decision, third period. That’s all I’m going to comment on it,” Montgomery said after the game.
On his final shift of the second period, Pastrnak made a poor turnover and compounded it with a bad line change that could have been damaging.
“That was a bad turnover,” Pastrnak said Monday. “I just want to move forward. I don’t want to be any distraction to our team. The guys know how I feel about them here. It’s a bad play. I take accountability and am already moving forward.”
The Bruins defeated the Maple Leafs 4-3 on Oct. 26 in Boston on captain Brad Marchand’s overtime goal.
–Field Level Media
