Bruins lose to Maple Leafs, will face Hurricanes in first round

TORONTO -- The Boston Bruins finished as the first wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference with a 5-2 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Arena on Friday.

Jake DeBrusk scored for the Bruins (51-26-5), who had won four in a row and still had a chance to finish third in the Atlantic Division but will face the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference First Round. Jeremy Swayman made 22 saves.
Game 1 of that best-of-7 series will be played at Carolina on Monday.
"We expect Carolina to be a difficult opponent," Boston coach Bruce Cassidy said. "They press, they're a great skating team, they check well. But we feel we can do the same things, so it should be a great series.
"A little bit is puck management and playing behind them because they like to press up and then winning some races. You don't have to win them all, but you have to win your share and you've got to defend well against them."
The Bruins opted to rest forwards Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, David Pastrnak, Erik Haula and Taylor Hall, and defensemen Charlie McAvoy, Hampus Lindholm and Matt Grzelcyk.
"We love our lineup, we love everyone we have in that locker room, even guys who are out of the lineup," Boston forward Charlie Coyle said. "If there's injuries or whatever happens, you never know what's going to happen in the playoffs. We have guys come in, step up and step right in and make an impact, and that's what we need. That's what good teams have. We have a lot of depth that way. We're really confident and we're just itching to get going."
William Nylander scored twice and Erik Kallgren made 24 saves for the Maple Leafs (54-21-7), who finished second in the Atlantic and will face the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round. Tampa Bay is seeking its third straight Stanley Cup championship.
Toronto will host Game 1 of that best-of-7 series Monday.
"It's a huge challenge for us," Toronto forward Jason Spezza said. "Exactly what we want, exactly what we need. We have a lot of respect for that team what they've done the last couple years. It's going to be a heck of a series."

The Maple Leafs rested forwards Auston Matthews, Mitchell Marner and John Tavares.
"The main objective tonight was to get through the game healthy and I believe we have so from that end, it was a successful night," Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. "We've got 82 games in the books here now and we get to play for real.
"It's a bizarre game to coach, to be honest. It's a tough one. Your bench is weird, you've got guys playing in all different spots. You're trying to do well in the game, you're trying not to use guys too much. I was monitoring ice time more than I was monitoring the play on the ice."
Trent Frederic scored 1-0 at 1:10 of the first period when he put in a loose puck at the top of the goal crease after Craig Smith centered the puck from behind the net.
Ilya Mikheyev tied it 1-1 at 3:51 when he deflected a point shot from Mark Giordano in the slot, and Nylander made it 2-1 at 13:16 when he scored on a breakaway after stealing the puck from Marc McLaughlin at the Maple Leafs blue line.
Nick Abruzzese gave Toronto a 3-1 lead at 19:52 when he deflected Morgan Rielly's point shot in the slot. It was his first NHL goal and point in his ninth game.
"It felt really good," Abruzzese said. "(I) had some chances in the past couple of games. I've felt better on the ice, so it was nice to have that one go in."

Nylander scored at 8:00 of the third period when he shot past Swayman's outstretched glove from the slot to give the Maple Leafs a 4-1 lead.
DeBrusk cut it to 4-2 with his 25th goal of the season at 12:49 from just below the right face-off dot on the power play.
Pierre Engvall scored an empty-net goal with 10 seconds left for the 5-2 final.
"I feel good about where we are at," Spezza said. "Any time we've faced adversity this year, we've been able to figure out what we're doing wrong and rally around it and figure out our game in short order, and that's why we've had a good regular season. (In) playoffs, it's important because there's not a whole lot of momentum from game to game so it's important to have that mindset and we've been training ourselves that way all season not letting the losses get to us and not getting too high with the wins either, so I think that sets us up well for playoffs."