Late power play goal gives Leafs 4-2 victory over Bruins

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TORONTO – The Maple Leafs needed to win on Monday night to keep their playoff dreams alive, and they did that with a little help from their friends.

A phantom interference call on Dominic Moore led to a Tyler Bozak power play goal in the final minutes to give Toronto a 4-2 victory over the Black and Gold at the Air Canada Centre.

The Bruins hopped on the board first with none other than Brad Marchand making something happen. Boston’s leading scorer beat Toronto D-man Jake Gardiner to a puck race in the neutral zone, and then pivoted with the puck in the offensive zone until he could feed David Backes in the slot for a top shelf scoring bid.

The helper was Marchand’s career-best 80th point of the season and got the B's off to an excellent start in a hugely important game.

Unfortunately for the Bruins the good times didn’t continue later on in the period with the referees calling matching penalties after Nikita Shoshnikov crushed Patrice Bergeron with a hit from behind in the corner. That led to 4-on-4 play against the speedy, skilled Maple Leafs and eventually to a Morgan Rielly backdoor strike once the B’s defense had sufficiently runs themselves around in circles in the D-zone. The late penalty ruined a good night for Tuukka Rask, who stopped 25-of-27 shots and was brilliant for much of the night that looked like it was headed to overtime until the late penalty call on Boston.

William Nylander added the empty net goal that truly put things out of reach for a Boston team that lost all four matchups with Toronto this season. 

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