TORONTO — The fickle finger of goaltender interference stuck the Bruins like a hot poker in the eye Saturday night when a goal by Ron Hainsey with 83 seconds remaining in regulation — just after a Toronto forward dumped Charlie McAvoy into goalie Tuukka Rask — withstood video scrutiny and handed the Leafs a 4-3 victory over the Bruins at the Air Canada Centre.
The loss, only their 14th in regulation this season, dropped the Bruins to third place in the Atlantic Division, 1 point behind the Leafs, who came back from 1-0 and 3-2 deficits without star center Auston Matthews in their lineup.
Despite a pair of Brad Marchand goals in the first period, the Bruins fell apart in the second, when they managed only two shots on goalie Fred Andersen, and ultimately lost when Hainsey’s weak one-time slapper eluded Rask on the glove side. It was a shot Rask typically would have handled with ease had it not been for Zach Hyman sending McAvoy skittering into him in a candlepin-like scattering of pins.
“I came right to the bench and the first thing I said was, ‘He shoved me, I felt it, I felt him shove me in,’ ’’ recalled McAvoy. “It felt kind of like a mailbox-type thing when you get pushed into somebody and you lose control of your balance right away. I mean, I just don’t see a shot like that beating Tuuks straight up, and I know he feels the same way. I thought it was coming back for sure.’’
On top of it all, No. 1 Bruins center Patrice Bergeron made his way to the bus afterward with his right foot and lower leg encased in a plastic walking boot/cast. He was able to walk without crutches. The Bruins did not offer an update on his condition, or how he was injured, but he noticeably flinched in the first period when a puck banged off his skate boot near the Boston bench.
Bergeron finished out the game, logging 19:15 in ice time (slightly more than his two wingers) and was his usual dominant self at the faceoff circle, winning 15 of 22 drops. He also assisted on both of Marchand’s strikes.
The Bruins, now 2-2-0 on their five-game roadie, will wrap up their trip Sunday night in Buffalo, with or without Bergeron in the lineup.
Coach Bruce Cassidy requested the goalie interference review on Hainsey’s winner, didn’t care for the outcome, but pointed more to the weak second period as his club’s downfall.
“You win some, you lose some,’’ said a chagrined Cassidy, his club now 37-14-8, still among the top teams in the league. “But maybe if we did more stuff around their net those calls go our way. I think that was the issue for us, we weren’t around their net enough . . . they made a good play to get puck possession and that got it to the net. It’s up to us to be harder as well.’’
The Leafs finished with a 36-23 shot advantage.
Marchand, with one goal in his seven previous games, connected for his first of two in the opening period for the 1-0 lead. Set up all alone in the slot with a David Pastrnak pass off the right wall, Marchand closed to within 25 feet, sniped in a wrister at 6:11 for his 23rd of the season.
The Leafs then scored a pair of their own, beginning with Mitch Marner’s 16th at 7:15 when he snapped home a pass from William Nylander. Only 3:15 later, and only seven seconds into their first power play of the night, the Leafs broke the deadlock on Nazem Kadri’s 22nd of the year
Marchand’s second came off another Pastrnak feed, the Czech winger centering out a velvety feed from the rear wall, Marchand swooping in and snapping his forehander to the top shelf, near side, for No. 24.
It was Marchand’s first two-goal game in four months. He potted a pair against the Sabres on Oct. 21, a 5-4 OT loss at the Garden.
“We didn’t have a good game,’’ said Marchand. “They came to play better than we did. It was an unfortunate goal at the end, but we shot ourselves in the foot long before that.’’
For the most part, the Brins were snowed under in the middle period, embarrassingly outshot by the Leafs, 16-2. However, they did connect on one of their two shots — a Jake DeBrusk tip-in off a Ryan Spooner feed — and that gave them the 3-2 lead with 1:55 gone in the period.
But from there, the Bruins landed only one more shot for the period, and the Leafs came back to tie, 3-3, with 56 seconds remaining in the period. It was Kadri again, nailing in a one-time slapper, from the high inner edge of the left wing circle on the power play.
Brandon Carlo, struggling again, spent a large chunk of the middle period on the bench, after blowing a tire on one play 7:30 into the period. Kasperi Kapanen dropped him on quick burst on the left side and it took some alert work in the crease by Sean Kuraly to prevent the Leafs from scoring.
“Brandon, there’s some nights that I think he has to find his game quicker, if something doesn’t go his way,’’ said Cassidy. “And I thought he could be harder in a game like this, in terms of on the puck, moving the puck, defending. It’s that simple. I talked to him about it, hope he’s better the next time.’’
Meanwhile, as the night rolled along, rumors were buzzing that the Bruins suddenly were the lead contenders to land right winger Rick Nash from the Rangers prior to Monday’s 3 p.m. trade deadline.
If the Bruins swing that deal, they’ll have to move some money with it — be it directly to the Rangers or somewhere else in the league. The Bruins are very near the $75 million cap ceiling and Nash, the one-time franchise face of the Blue Jackets, is on an expiring contract that pays him a whopping $7.8 million this year. His salary would slot in at No. 1 with Boston, where Krejci currently tops the books at $7.25 million.
