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The Toronto Maple Leafs were in tough against the league-leading Boston Bruins, who were coming into the final game before the NHL All-Star break with their longest losing skid of the season, and after being competitive in the first 40 minutes, the Bruins pulled away with three third period goals to win 5-2 at Scotiabank Arena on Wednesday.
Mitch Marner and Calle Jarnkrok scored for Toronto, but the Leafs defensive lapses at inopportune times allowed Boston to stay in the lead most of the game in spite of the Leafs limiting the Bruins “Perfection Line” of Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron, and David Pastrnak to one point.
“(The Bruins) are a team that puts themselves in a spot to win games and forces the opposition to chase it. When it opens up, they make you pay for it. That is kind of what happened here.” Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe said after the game. “The last time we played them in their building, it was a tie game with two minutes left. Tonight, it is a 2-1 game going into the third period. The margins are thin. Over the course of the season, it is significant. They just stay with it. They are 40 goals better than every team in the NHL. It is a significant gap between them and the rest of the league when you look at the season in its entirety to this point.”
Boston got goals from unusual scores, as blueliners Derek Forbort, Brandon Carlo, and fourth-liner AJ Greer scored their first three goals before former Devil Pavel Zacha got into the act with a pair of late markers. Toronto got no production out of their bottom six, and their core players had a horrible night, with Marner -4 and William Nylander, Rasmus Sandin, and Timothy Liljegren -3.
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With the loss, the Leafs fall 13 points in back of Boston in the Atlantic Division, but more importantly, fall to widen their lead over the Tampa Bay Lightning for home-ice advantage in the first round. Toronto is five points in front of the Lightning, but Tampa has four games in hand, three of which will be made up before the Leafs resume their schedule a week from Friday in Columbus.
After the game, the club sent center Pontus Holmberg and goalie Joseph Woll to the AHL Toronto Marlies, who play back-to-back against Laval this weekend.
Toronto Maple Leafs Blogger • 
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