Bruins top Maple Leafs for third time in four games

TORONTO-- The Boston Bruins ended the season series with the Toronto Maple Leafs with a 3-2 win at Scotiabank Arena on Saturday.

Sean Kuraly had a goal and two assists, David Krejci and David Pastrnak scored, and Tuukka Rask made 30 saves for the Bruins (26-15-4), who have won six of their past seven games.
"It was two big points, it was no other way to look at it for us tonight," Kuraly said. "We needed the points, I thought we got out front pretty well, but they're a good team too and they pushed back pretty well for a lot of the game. I thought it was good of us to hold them off (in the third period) and keep them out of the dangerous areas for the most part."
WATCH: [All Bruins vs. Maple Leafs highlights]
Andreas Johnsson and Mitchell Marner scored, and Michael Hutchinson made 26 saves for the Maple Leafs (28-14-2), who are 2-4-0 after a five-game winning streak.
"I think we just leave knowing that we did all the right things," Marner said. "Mistakes are going to happen; they capitalized on them when they had them. We know what we need to fix, we'll talk about it (at practice) tomorrow. I thought we played the game we wanted to tonight, we got pucks to the net, just not the result."

Boston won three of the four games against Toronto this season but trails it by two points in the Atlantic Division.
"It's huge, it's a four-point swing in the standings, but at the same time, we can enjoy tonight but we can't sit on it," Pastrnak said.
Pastrnak gave the Bruins a 3-2 lead with 15 seconds left in the second period when he one-timed a pass at the top of the crease from Kuraly, who intercepted a pass from Maple Leafs defenseman Nikita Zaitsev.
"All I'm thinking really is to get to the puck first, and once I got to it first, I took a look and saw [Pastrnak] coming," Kuraly said. "It doesn't go through all the time; it went through a couple guys, but I thought I'd give it a try and I guess the risk was worth the reward on that one."
The Bruins led 1-0 at 18:21 of the first period when Krejci took a pass from Kuraly and shot from the right face-off dot.
Johnsson tied it 1-1 at 7:37 of the second period when his shot from the slot went off Rask's glove.
Marner gave Toronto a 2-1 lead at 9:30 on the power play when he took a cross-ice pass from Nazem Kadri and shot from the right face-off dot.

The Bruins tied it 2-2 at 14:47 when Kuraly scored from the slot.
"Actually overall, a pretty good game, I think we played well," Kadri said. "For the most part we were pretty dominant, just a couple of costly mistakes that we just need to shake off."

They said it

"It's great, I think he's playing, the whole line (with Noel Acciari and Chris Wagner) has been playing great for a couple months now and really getting rewarded now, so it's great to see. But they work extremely hard every day, every game. I think we're just happy for them to get the reward they deserve." -- Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask on Sean Kuraly

"Of course, we're always looking forward to playing these guys. They're a great hockey team. They're well coached, tons of credit goes to them. We're a good team too, and tonight I felt like we did play good enough to get a win but just didn't get the result." -- Maple Leafs forward Nazem Kadri

Need to know

Kuraly's three points are his career high in 128 NHL games. ... Maple Leafs forward Auston Matthews has one goal in his past nine games after scoring nine in his prior 10.

What's next

Bruins: Host the Montreal Canadiens on Monday (7:30 p.m. ET; NBCSN, TSN2, RDS, NHL.TV)
Maple Leafs: Host the Colorado Avalanche on Monday (7 p.m. ET; ESPN+, TSN4, ALT, NHL.TV)