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Leafs blank Bruins’ top line, cut series deficit to 2-1

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Patrick Marleau found the back of the net twice while Auston Matthews scored his first goal of the postseason to push the Maple Leafs past the Bruins in Game 3.

Well, we’ve got ourselves a series.

The Toronto Maple Leafs managed to get themselves on the board in the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs with a 4-2 victory over the Boston Bruins.

The biggest question coming into the game was how the Leafs were going to shut down the Bruins’ top line of Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak. Now that they were at home, they managed to get the matchup they wanted against that dynamic trio. Head coach Mike Babcock tried to get Tomas Plekanec’s line out against them with Morgan Rielly and Ron Hainsey on defense.

Marchand, Bergeron and Pastrnak got their scoring chances and shot attempts, but they didn’t get on the board in Game 3. The line combined to go minus-7 on the evening. Still, all three players finished the game with a CF% of 50 percent or more.

Meanwhile, Plekanec’s CF% was below 40 percent. That’s not great, but you have to expect that Boston’s top line will get their looks. If you’re matching up against them, you just have to pray that they don’t convert, and that’s exactly what happened in Game 3.

James van Riemsdyk opened the scoring in the first period, after the Leafs got a controversial power play opportunity when Riley Nash was given a penalty for putting the puck over the glass (it deflected before going out of play, but the officials missed it).
[NBC’s Stanley Cup Playoff Hub]

Adam McQuaid tied the game at one early in the second frame when he beat Frederik Andersen with a shot from the point. Andersen made a number of key saves in this game, but there’s no doubt that he’s going to want to have this one back.

Even though he gave up at least one questionable goal in this one, the Maple Leafs netminder did what he had to do to keep his team ahead down the stretch. When it was all said and done, he turned aside 40 of 42 shots in Game 3, including this spectacular one on David Pastrnak late in the game.

Patrick Marleau restored Toronto’s one-goal lead just 55 seconds later. Again though, Zdeno Chara scored this goal from a ridiculous angle:

But before the end of the frame, Auston Matthews found the back of the net for the first time in the series, and he was pretty fired up about it.

His goal proved to be the game-winner.

Marleau’s second tally of the game extended Toronto’s lead to 4-2 in the third.

These two teams will get an extra day between this game and the next season, as the Leafs will host Game 4 on Thursday night.

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Joey Alfieri is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @joeyalfieri.