Pastrnak gets hat trick, Bruins send Maple Leafs to first road loss

BOSTON -- David Pastrnak scored his third NHL hat trick to help the Boston Bruins hand the Toronto Maple Leafs their first road loss of the season, 5-1 at TD Garden on Saturday.

"It was a lot of fun," said Pastrnak, who is averaging 1.42 points per game against the Maple Leafs in his career, including the Stanley Cup Playoffs. "I love playing against Toronto, so it was fun."
Jaroslav Halak made 40 saves, Patrice Bergeron had a goal and two assists, and Brad Marchand had two assists for Boston (9-5-2), which is 6-2-0 at home.
WATCH: [All Maple Leafs vs. Bruins highlights]
The Bruins were looking to rebound from an 8-5 home loss to the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday. Boston hasn't lost consecutive games in regulation this season.
"We wanted to bounce back, and I thought it was a great game from top to bottom," Bergeron said. "Obviously, we wanted to kind of play a great game, and no matter what the situation was, we stuck with it and we kept going on our toes, and kept going forward. So I thought it was a great effort by everyone."

Pastrnak had an assist. It was his second hat trick (Oct. 13 against the Detroit Red Wings) and his third four-point game this season (two goals, two assists Oct. 8 and Oct. 23, each against the Ottawa Senators).
"He's had years where he's come out really hot and kind of tapered off, but the confidence level he has now, the way he's shooting the puck, I don't think it's going to," Marchand said of Pastrnak, who leads the NHL with 15 goals. "He's an incredible player, he has a ton of talent, and he's figuring the game out now, which is making him even more dangerous."
John Tavares scored, and Garret Sparks made 29 saves for the Maple Leafs (11-6-0), who won their first six road games and were on a three-game winning streak.
The Maple Leafs outshot the Bruins 20-6 in the first period. But Boston scored the only goal of the period when Bergeron tipped a Pastrnak pass at 16:12 for a 1-0 lead.
"Well, we didn't score, and then they came out and did," Toronto coach Mike Babcock said. "And obviously then the rest is history. It's an unfortunate thing."
Pastrnak made it 2-0 with a one-timer past Sparks from the left face-off dot at 5:46 of the second period. Defenseman Matt Grzelcyk kept the puck in at the right point and got it to Bergeron, who made a cross-ice pass to Pastrnak.
The Bruins went ahead 3-0 on Pastrnak's second of the night at 10:34. He got behind Maple Leafs defenseman Nikita Zaitsev near the left post, and Marchand passed to him from the right circle.

Tavares scored at 19:30, two seconds after a Toronto power play ended, to cut the Boston lead to 3-1. Mitchell Marner made a cross-ice pass to Tavares, who scored on a wrist shot from the bottom of the left circle.
Pastrnak completed the hat trick on the power play at 14:04 of the third period, beating Sparks with a one-timer from the bottom of the left circle to make it 4-1.
"It's not like they're looking to set each other up 10 feet away; they're making passes 50, 60 feet and one-timing them. It's a different look," Sparks said of the Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak line. "There's not a whole lot of lines like that, and it was an interesting experience going up against them."
Joakim Nordstrom scored at 14:30 for the 5-1 final score, keeping the puck on a 3-on-2 and scoring on a wrist shot with Jake DeBrusk screening Sparks.

They said it

"[That was] the hardest shot I've ever seen. Knocked himself silly one-timing it." -- Maple Leafs goaltender Garret Sparks on David Pastrnak's first goal
"We just wanted to kill that first one and [have it] just be 0-0. We were able to do that, and I think after that we kind of started playing our game." -- Bruins goaltender Jaroslav Halak on killing Steven Kampfer's interference penalty at 5:48 of the first period

Need to know

Tavares has three goals and three assists in a five-game point streak. ... Pastrnak became the seventh Bruins player to have multiple hat tricks against the Maple Leafs, regular season and playoffs (Phil Esposito, 4; Bobby Bauer, 2; Herb Cain, 2; Jean-Guy Gendron, 2; Cam Neely, 2; David Krejci, 2). His first was April 14 in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference First Round, when he had three goals and three assists in a 7-3 win.

What's next

Maple Leafs: At the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday (10:30 p.m. ET; FS-W, SNO, NHL.TV)
Bruins: Host the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday (7 p.m. ET; NESN, ATTSN-RM, NHL.TV)