Bruins waste closeout opportunity vs. Maple Leafs, lose Game 5 in overtime

BOSTON -- The Bruins could have closed out their first-round series on Tuesday night. Instead, they're heading back to Toronto after an overtime loss in Game 5.

In what was not the greatest display of intensity and urgency, the Bruins got thoroughly outplayed and outworked by the Maple Leafs for at least the first 30 minutes of play in this one, though the score remained knotted at one goal apiece for the final 46 minutes of regulation. Just 2:26 into overtime, though, Matt Grezelcyk got beaten to the net front by John Tavares, who one-handed the puck through the crease for Matthew Knies to score the game-winning goal.

With that, the Leafs go from being on life support without Auston Matthews in a win-or-go-home Game 5 on the road to riding some momentum and building some desperately needed confidence heading into a Game 6 back in Ontario. 

"They were just better," Bruins captain Brad Marchand said of the Leafs. "They came and they were willing to leave it all on the line tonight. And we needed to be better than we were. It's that simple. They were prepared to play and start the game. And we weren't. Unfortunately we never really kind of got it together throughout the game."

Jeremy Swayman stopped 31 Toronto shots in the losing effort, and he may be the lone Bruins player who can feel good about his performance in this game. Marchand failed to land a shot on net in his 19 minutes of ice time, David Pastrnak couldn't beat Joseph Woll with any of his four shots on goal, and the Maple Leafs generated 70 shot attempts compared to the Bruins' 53 attempts. The Leafs also won over 60 percent of the game's faceoffs while matching or surpassing the Bruins' physicality all over the ice.

"I just thought they outbattled us, they outwilled us," Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery told NESN after the loss. "That was the biggest difference."

The home team got off to a rough start in Game 5, falling behind 1-0 just 5:33 into the game on a Jake McCabe point shot off a Toronto offensive zone faceoff win following a Bruins icing. The Leafs dominated puck possession in the first period and outshot Boston 12-2, but the Bruins scored on one of those shots, with Trent Frederic capitalizing on a fortuitous bounce by beating Joseph Woll on a shot from the slot.

The score stayed at 1-1 through the second period, and neither team could score in the third period either, sending the game into overtime.

Boston did have one quality scoring opportunity in the opening minute of overtime, but Woll kicked away a point-blank shot by Charlie Coyle to save the Maple Leafs' season.

Minutes later, after Charlie McAvoy's pass bounced over Marchand's stick blade, the Leafs gained possession and Tavares created the game-winning opportunity for Toronto.

"We weren't good enough. Just, simple as that. You know, Toronto came out ready to play, they took it to us. We weren't ready to match their desperation," Montgomery said in his postgame press conference. "We just weren't good enough, you know? That's ... we weren't good enough. I don't have, you know, something to give you that's concrete [for] what led to our slow start, besides Toronto was better than us."

It would be difficult to make a case that the Bruins deserved to win this game. They had a chance to win by virtue of sticking around, thanks in large part to the play fo Swayman. But they weren't the better team.

How much better Toronto was can be debated. Yet playing without their leading scorer, the Maple Leafs played well enough to win.

And instead of this series being over in five with relative ease on Boston's part, it's not extended for at least two more days and at least one more game. The Bruins have won both games in Toronto thus far in this series, but the pressure figures to be amplified several levels with the stakes being raised for Game 6.

While nobody in Boston wants to hear a word about last spring, it must be stated that the Bruins led their first-round series over Florida 3-1 before losing in overtime of Game 5 on home ice en route to letting that entire series slip away from them.

That shouldn't happen this year against the Leafs. Yet thanks to a game that the Bruins likely would all want back, they'll have to deal with the possibility for at least the next two days.