By Zachary McMahon –
The Boston Bruins and the Toronto Maple Leafs faced off in Game 7 of their first-round matchup at TD Garden in Boston on Saturday night. There were fears that Boston would choke after being up 3-1 in the series, and then losing two straight to get into this point, just like last season against the Florida Panthers.
Once again, Jeremy Swayman was in net for the Bruins, as he got his third career Game 7 start, where he had a previous record of 0-2, including the Game 7 against the Panthers last season at TD Garden. For the Maple Leafs, Ilya Samsonov was in net, due to Joseph Woll being out with an undisclosed injury that he suffered in game 6 on Thursday.
The first 49 minutes in the game, there was no scoring from either team, where there was one close call with Matthew Knies on a breakaway, where he was stopped by Kevin Shattenkirk, who made Knies crash into Swayman in the second period.
However, the tie was broken when William Nylander scored his third postseason goal off an assist from Auston Matthews, who came back after being out for the last two games, where he refused to disclose what he suffered to the media.
A minute after Nylander’s goal, Hampus Lindholm had the equalizer where he snuck the puck on on Samsonov’s left side, after Jeremy Brazeau almost scored before it grazed the top of the net.
In the final seconds, Swayman made a nice save to force the game into going into overtime after a shot from Nylander.
In under two minutes in overtime, David Pastrnak was able to send the Bruins to the next round with scoring the overtime goal to win the game off a feed from Lindholm.
Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery challenged Pastrnak to do better in game 7, and it paid off.
The Bruins will be playing against the Panthers in game 1 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals in Florida on Monday at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN.