Brad Marchand broke a tie midway through the third period and the Boston Bruins beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-2 on Wednesday night to take a 2-1 lead in the first-round playoff series.
At this point, no one can say they didn't try the rotation, with each man getting a start in the first two and Swayman the overwhelming favorite to be in net for Game 3. But should the former Black Bear step up with another performance similar to what he had in Game 1, should the rotation meet an early end?
Auston Matthews had a goal and two assists and Domi also scored for Toronto, which snapped an eight-game losing streak against Boston over 534 days dating to November 2022. Ilya Samsonov stopped 27 shots and John Tavares also scored for the Maple Leafs, who haven’t beaten the Bruins in a playoff series since 1959.
Jiri Smejkal scored his first career goal midway through the second period and Jakob Chychrun scored less than a minute later as the Ottawa Senators beat the Boston Bruins 3-1 on Tuesday night in the regular-season finale for both teams.
For the course of the regular season, only three teams have been better. But as was learned last year, when Boston was quite literally the greatest regular season team of all-time, none of that matters at this point on the calendar.
As a golf junkie, this is one of the best weekends on the sports calendar and will account for the vast majority of my sports viewing habits over the course of the next three days.