Auston Matthews, Maple Leafs break through against Bruins in Game 2 to even first-round series - The Boston Globe (2024)

The clubs will head to Toronto for a Wednesday night date deadlocked at a game apiece in their best-of-seven first-round Stanley Cup playoff series.

On the winner, Matthews collected a sky-high feed from Max Domi, and with a step on Charlie McAvoy, settled it with his glove, and raced in on Ullmark.

Matthews went backhand, forehand, and drilled it over a sprawling Ullmark.

The strike snapped a six-game postseason drought for Matthews and marked the first time the Leafs held a lead over the Bruins in six meetings this season, totaling nearly 227 minutes and 56 seconds.

Bouncing back from adversity has been a hallmark of this Bruins club and they’ll get another chance to show their resiliency in one of the NHL’s toughest environs.

“Next game you try to focus, don’t focus on home or away, obviously the home fans help a lot, but at the same time you have to maintain the focus and focus on your game,” said David Pastrnak. “So, we’ll regroup and it’ll get better.”

After dominating the first 20 minutes and holding a 2-1 lead, the Bruins couldn’t consistently generate quality scoring chances as Ilya Samsonov, who looked shaky through the first four periods of this series, locked things down, making 19 saves over the final two periods.

“I didn’t think our urgency was where it needed to be to prevail tonight,” said Bruins coach Jim Montgomery. “It’s 1-1. It’s a series. We knew all along [it would be]. I mean, we were so close in the standings all year long. They’re a good hockey team. We’re a good hockey team. It’s the playoffs. They improved from Game 1 to Game 2. We didn’t improve enough. We need to get better for Game 3.”

Montgomery stood by his decision to start Ullmark over Game 1 winner Jeremy Swayman.

“No second guesses. He was terrific. He made multiple big-time saves and it’s the strength of our team,” said the coach. “Both of them played really well, right? I mean, we only scored two goals.”

Boston came out intent to continue the physical style of Game 1, with McAvoy, Brandon Carlo, and Brad Marchand leading the way.

Marchand, who had clearly taken note of Pat Maroon’s Game 1 bench dump of Timothy Liljegren, did the same to Joel Edmundson.

Hey, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe bemoaned his team’s undisciplined penalties in the opener and another bit them Monday.

Jake McCabe cross-checked Jakub Lauko to the ice just a tick after the whistle and he was sent off.

The Bruins made it hurt with Morgan Geekie’s first of the postseason — and third of his career.

Jake DeBrusk swung around the top of the circle and hit Marchand on the goal line. Marchand waited just a split-second and then slid it across the blue paint where Geekie slammed it home Pastrnak-style at 10:18.

After the goal McCabe made a beeline to Samsonov and gave him a stick tap as if to say, “My bad.”

It was a short-lived lead, however, as Max Domi tied it just 14 seconds later.

The Leafs rushed off the faceoff and with Carlo and Pastrnak bodied out of the slot, Domi banged in his own rebound.

Charlie Coyle nearly restored the lead with less than a minute left in the period when his bad-angle shot along the goal line hit Samsonov in the ear hole and seemed to stun the Russian, who needed a moment to collect himself and get his mask fixed.

The Bruins went up, 2-1, off the next faceoff when Zacha sent a gorgeous blind backhand pass to an unmarked Pastrnak, who blistered one past Samsonov with just 7.8 ticks left in the period.

That would be it on the offense end, however.

The Bruins were whistled for too many men on the ice, which left Montgomery steaming and the Maple Leafs buzzing.

Ullmark was the best of Boston killers, making several bell ringers, his best a glove snag off Calle Jarnkrok’s point-blank whistler.

The replay officials in Toronto wanted a lookatit, but after review, it was revealed Ullmark’s glove was on the right side of the goal line.

The Torontonians had another potential tying goal waved off after Tyler Bertuzzi’s power-play chop-in was ruled a high stick. Long before the league office deemed it no good, some 18,000 referees in the stands had made up their minds.

Matt Grzelcyk was sent back to the box and the Maple Leafs finally tied it for real when John Tavares’s spin-o-rama shot sailed over Ullmark’s blocker with 27 seconds left on the infraction.

Both clubs pushed in the third and Ullmark had the save of the night, robbing Nicholas Robertson point-blank, moments before Matthews strusck for the winner.

“I actually liked our second period until we took the penalties and their power play got rolling and they get juice from their power play,” said Montgomery. “And I thought in the third period, they were better than we were.”

Jim McBride can be reached at james.mcbride@globe.com. Follow him @globejimmcbride.