NHL | All behind the captain! The great Marchand was leading the way for the Bruins. He gets through what others don’t, Toronto is angry

Boston took a 2-1 lead in the games with an away win to even out the previous home defeat and could spoil it again in Canada on Sunday night. If Marchand is in the mood, anything is possible.

“When I wasn’t coaching in the NHL, I admired Marchand and Patrice Bergeron and all the hard work they did for the Bruins. Now I had the chance to see it again with my own eyes. Brad is able to raise his game to a higher level in important moments,” said coach Jim Montgomery. And he does it in an unmistakable way.

Marchand also scored the equalizer for Boston in the first period at 1-1 when he brought down Tyler Bertuzzi to open up space for goal scorer Trent Frederic.

“I don’t think there’s another player in this series who could get away with tripping Bertuzzi like that. But he does. It’s an art, he’s elite at it,” complained Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe.

But Marchand wanted to send a message that the Bruins weren’t going to have their way. “They come at us very hard, physically, so we wanted to match them and we improved in that area,” said the Boston captain. “Though it wasn’t always nice on our part.”

Toronto did what they could, winning 68-65 on hits. Ryan Reaves took down Pavel Zacha, Max Domi even tripped Bruins goaltender Jeremy Swayman during a commercial break, but that didn’t affect the performance of the American goaltender, who returned to the Boston posts. Swayman made 28 saves in the win.

Marchand then scored his 55th playoff goal into an empty net, having previously set up Bertuzzi again, to tie club president Cam Neely for the Bruins’ all-time lead. “I really hope I have a lot left in me,” said the skipper ahead of the weekend’s continuation of the series.

The Maple Leafs also played in the third game without William Nylander, whose absence has an increasingly mysterious haze. The Swedish forward played all 82 games of the regular season with a record of 40+58. But once the playoffs started, he hasn’t even been on the ice for a second. Before the last game, Keefe indicated that he was already counting on Nylander. So maybe the next time Toronto intends to shine more light on Marchand.

“Obviously he wants to get under our skin and influence the referee. We have to stay calm, just play hard and reduce his efficiency,” Toronto’s Matthew Knies planned.