The Boston Bruins had the Toronto Maple Leafs on the ropes heading into their Game 5 contest on Tuesday night. With a 3-1 series lead in their favor, a return to home ice at TD Garden, Auston Matthews being forced to miss the game due to his mysterious illness, and Joseph Woll taking over in net for Ilya Samsonov, it wouldn't have been a surprise to see Boston send Toronto packing in convincing fashion.
Instead, the Maple Leafs threw a vicious haymaker to start the game, and while the B's did manage to recover and force overtime, it was the Leafs who came out victorious thanks to Matthew Knies' game-winner that came two minutes and 26 seconds into the extra frame. And with that, the two teams will head back to Toronto for Game 6, which will take place on Thursday night at 8 PM EST.
There's no sense beating around the bush; this was a pretty crushing loss for the Bruins considering the circumstances, and this series is starting to have an eerily similar feel to last year's first-round defeat at the hands of the Florida Panthers. Boston needs to put this game in the rearview mirror quickly, though, because they cannot allow panic to begin setting in based off of this one loss.
The Bruins can't afford to look into Game 5 loss too much
It's hard to look at the Bruins Game 5 loss and not be at least a little bit concerned. They were thoroughly outplayed for the first 30 minutes of the game, and we saw a similar story get written just last year in the playoffs. After taking a 3-1 lead over the Panthers, Boston lost three straight games, with two being overtime losses, to crash out of the playoffs after their historic regular season campaign.
The stakes may not be as high as they were last year, but anytime you take a 3-1 series lead, you are generally expected to be able to win one of those final three games in order to advance to the next round of the playoffs. Instead, Boston has now lost five straight games when they've found themselves with a chance to clinch a series and move onto the next round of the playoffs dating back to the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
While the optics surrounding this loss are going to be overwhelmingly negative (as they should be), it's important to not lose focus on where the Bruins find themselves. They still hold a 3-2 series lead, and while taking an unnecessary trip back to Toronto is not ideal, they played very well in enemy territory in Games 3 and 4 to give themselves their initial 3-1 series lead.
Game 5 was interesting for Boston because of how flat they came out. Toronto dominated the proceedings early, and played their best period of the series to open the game. Yet they still went into the intermission tied at one because of an extremely fortuitous goal from Trent Frederic. And about halfway through the second period, the Bruins finally woke up and began to exert their influence on this game.
Boston probably should have ended this game in the third period, where they had several great chances to pot their second goal of the night. And even when overtime got underway, the B's created two or three extremely good chances before Knies found the puck sitting in front of an exposed net for the game-winner. And just like that, the Bruins gave the Leafs some life.
You never want to give your opponent an opportunity to keep breathing in the playoffs, but Boston has done just that by losing this game. If they came out and dominated the first period on Tuesday night, they probably would have coasted past Toronto into the second round. Instead, they let their foot off the gas pedal, and they now have to head back to Canada in an attempt to close out this series.
It'd be fair to panic, but the team cannot adhere to that mindset as they prepare for another chance to close out the Maple Leafs in Game 6. They have generally been the better team throughout this series, and it took overtime for Toronto to beat Boston in their best performance through the first five games. If the Bruins come out and play their brand of hockey on Thursday night, they'll set up a rematch with the Panthers in the second round.
It's tough to not get caught up in the storylines that will flare up as a result of this loss, but it's vital that the Bruins put this one behind them quickly and move onto the next. This series is still theirs for the taking, but they are going to have to respond in a big way in order to ensure that this series doesn't become a repeat of what we saw last year against the Panthers.
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