Bruins Notes: Boston Leaders Frustrated After Failing To Earn Win

BOSTON — Things were going great for the Boston Bruins on Tuesday night at TD Garden –until they weren’t.

Midway through the second period, the Bruins held a 3-0 lead over the Maple Leafs. Then the floodgates opened, and Toronto stormed back with three goals to tie the game.

The Bruins took the lead again on David Pastrnak’s team-leading 30th goal of the season, but with 46 seconds left in regulation and Anthony Stolarz pulled for a sixth attacker, the Leafs tied the game again to force overtime. The visitors completed the come-from-behind win when Mitch Marner scored his second goal of the game with 52 seconds remaining in the extra frame.

“The most frustrating thing is we take the lead 4-3, and we still weren’t able to close,” Pastrnak said. “… It’s tough to have this second point hanging on the table and let them grab it.”

The Bruins are currently at risk of not making the postseason for the first time since the 2015-16 campaign, so squandering a lead and not securing two points is not something Boston can afford with 23 games remaining in the regular season.

“We can’t be giving up points right now,” Bruins captain Brad Marchand said after the loss. “They’re obviously a very good team. We knew they’d push. And they did. It doesn’t take much for them to score, which we obviously saw tonight. I thought we played well. We definitely played good enough to win that game. It’s unfortunate we didn’t get both points.”

The Bruins have been guilty of not starting games on time throughout the season, but that was not the case in this game. Pastrnak opened the scoring just 29 seconds into the contest, followed by power-play goals from Morgan Geekie and Marchand. Boston’s issue against the Leafs was allowing Toronto back into the game early in the third period.

Oliver Wahlstrom committed a high-sticking penalty in the offensive zone with less than a minute to play in the middle frame. Toronto’s power play carried over into the third on a fresh sheet of ice, and the Leafs wasted little time capitalizing with the Bruins shorthanded.

“Frustrating, yeah,” interim coach Joe Sacco said of the penalty. “It’s 200 feet from your net. It’s the old saying. You don’t want to take penalties in the offensive zone, especially against a power play like that. We did a good job against that power play for the most part, too.”

Here are more notes from Tuesday’s Bruins-Leafs game:

— Jeremy Swayman made 24 saves on 29 shots, including Steven Lorentz’s shorthanded bid after Mason Lohrei fumbled a puck at the offensive blue line. Swayman stopped 12 straight shots before Toronto scored its first goal at 13:52 of the second period.

“You don’t want to give up a lead and lose a point, but we got a point. That’s what we focus on,” Swayman said. “… Every opportunity they had they capitalized on it. Let’s tip our cap to that and move forward with the positives we had tonight.”

— Pastrnak recorded two goals and an assist in the loss to extend his point streak to 15 games. He has 13 goals and 16 assists for 29 points over that span. Pastrnak has scored 30-plus goals eight times in his career and has done so in four straight seasons.

— It was the 85th game that both Pastrnak and Marchand scored a goal. The Bruins are 73-6-6 when the pair light the lamp in the same contest.

— The Bruins went winless in their last four games and now sit at 27-24-8 overall. Boston will look to get back in the win column when it hosts the New York Islanders on Thursday night. Puck drop from TD Garden is scheduled for 7 p.m. ET and you can watch the game on NESN following an hour of pregame coverage.