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The Toronto Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins did not exactly put forth a performance fitting of the occasion for most of the 2017 Hall of Fame game at Air Canada Centre on Friday, but the ending made up for it, as James van Riemsdyk scored his second goal to tie the game late in regulation and Patrick Marleau scored at 1:03 of overtime to give the Leafs a 3-2 win and a sweep of their three-game homestand.
The clubs played a tactical and unexciting chess match for most of the night, with Patrice Bergeron and van Riemsdyk trading goals late in the second period. With Josh Leivo off for hooking, David Pastrnak put the Bruins in the lead with less than six minutes left, but Toronto rallied to even the score thanks to the playmaking of Mitch Marner.
With goalie Frederik Andersen pulled for an extra attacker late in regulation, the Leafs trapped weary Boston defenders in their own zone and Marner set up van Reimsdyk for the deflection past Bruins goaltender Anton Khudobin.
In overtime, Marner prevented an errant Marleau drop pass from resulting in a Pastrnak scoring chance and then set up Gardiner for a shot that Marleau tipped past Khudobin for the game winner.
“I kind of knew (van Riemsdyk) was going to slide back there and luckily it got through to him.… Marner said after the game. “I thought Pastrnak maybe fell or lost an edge in our own zone(in overtime), so I thought we had some time going up the ice. I tried to draw both D-men into me and Jake made a great pass to Patty and he's not going to miss that one.… With Auston Matthews out of the lineup for the second straight game, Leafs coach Mike Babcock leaned heavily on Marner, reuniting him with van Riemsdyk and Tyler Bozak and playing him 17:28 (third most TOI behind Nazem Kadri and Connor Brown on the night. “It's great to see Mitch be important at the end and get a couple of points.… Babcock said of the recently struggling Marner. “He's looking for some positive reinforcement from the game and if you work real hard the game usually rewards you, so good for him.… Babcock indicated after the game that Matthews would not make the flight to Boston for the second of the home-and-home series at TD Garden on Saturday, which means the Leafs leading scorer will have been off the ice for a week following the flare up of his unspecified lower body injury against St. Louis last Saturday.
After a 33-save performance on Friday, the odds of Andersen playing both ends of the back-to-back went from slim to none. Curtis McElhinney (1-1, 4.10 GAA, .869 Sv %) will get the start for Toronto, while Boston will go with Tuukka Rask (3-5-2, 2.77 GAA, .903 Sv %) at home.
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