Boston Bruins: 5 Keys to Saturday's Matchup with Toronto Maple Leafs

If dropping two straight meetings to the formerly hapless Montreal Canadiens docked their stature in the Northeast Division, let alone the Eastern Conference, perhaps the Boston Bruins can get back on their skates by taking another game from the league-leading Toronto Maple Leafs.

They will have their chance Saturday night when they visit the Air Canada Centre, 16 days after throttling the surprisingly sizzling Leafs, 6-2, at TD Garden. That constituted Toronto’s first regulation loss of the season and the Leafs have gone a respectable 5-2-0 since then.

Here are five items worth scrutinizing as the Bruins vie to strike Toronto twice and continue to reinvigorate themselves.

Clearing the Air

The Maple Leafs are 5-0-1 on home ice so far this season. And even when their Northeast Division cohabitants were floundering, the Bruins went an iffy 1-1-1 at the Air Canada Centre both last season and the year prior.

With their record now 9-3-1, as opposed to the 5-5-3 transcript they had at last year’s 13-game mark, the Leafs have shown that they will be tougher to take down from their 4-0-0 start than they were after an identical start in 2010-11.

But if the Bruins can knock Toronto off on their first try on the road―thus improving them to 2-0-0 in the season series and giving them that long-awaited instance of back-to-back wins―they will at least reassert themselves in the divisional derby.

Curbing the Mac Attack

Phil Kessel, still the NHL’s top goal scorer and point-getter, has cooled off on the firsthand strikes with only one goal in the last five games. The ex-Bruin does, however, have six assists in that span while Clarke MacArthur has perked up for a 6-1-7 log in his last five outings after mustering only one point (an assist) in his first five appearances.

Other aspiring hot-streakers to keep in line include Joffrey Lupul and Joey Crabb. Lupul tallied a hat trick against New Jersey this past Wednesday while Crabb has two goals in as many games since being called up from the AHL Marlies.

Hey, there had to be a reason why Toronto is third in the league in offense behind Philadelphia and Washington with 3.38 goals per game. And with guys like MacArthur having caught fire since the last Boston-Toronto matchup, the Bruins defense and goaltending will need to make a keener approach.

Lining Up

With the possible exception of Benoit Pouliot’s reinsertion, the Bruins will implicitly use the same line combinations as they did in Tuesday’s 5-3 triumph over the Ottawa Senators.

This means head coach Claude Julien is banking on the young line of Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and Tyler Seguin building upon their first performance as a unit. And it means he still has faith in the often-patchy trio of Nathan Horton, David Krejci and Milan Lucic.

Can that top six follow through on the skipper’s trust? And can the lower echelon of the depth chart continue to supplement the scoring as needed like Chris Kelly did on Tuesday?

Making Penalties Kill Them

Not unlike Ottawa, the NHL’s other Ontario tenant boasts at least one principal weakness in the form of a subpar penalty kill. In fact, the Leafs enter Saturday’s contest at No. 30 in that category with a 71.7 percent success rate.

On Wednesday, Toronto claimed a 5-3 victory in New Jersey, but not without letting the Devils go 2-for-2 on the power play. Three nights prior, they surrendered two goals on four shorthanded segments against the Senators.

Having just taken another baby step against Ottawa, the Bruins' power-play brigade has a radiant invitation to further bolster its confidence by exploiting one of its weaker adversaries and working from the bottom up.

Holding the Catch-up

The Bruins have already let this lesson reiterate itself enough over the past month, but they cannot afford to let the Leafs get an early stranglehold on this game. Toronto is a pristine 4-0-0 when leading after the first period and 5-0-0 when leading at the second intermission.

On the flip side, the Maple Leafs are 4-0-0 when the opposition scores first while the Bruins are 1-2-0 when drawing first blood.

In each of their last three come-from-behind victories, the Leafs never trailed by more than one goal. Meanwhile, both of Boston’s fall-from-ahead losses have ended in a 2-1 upshot.

Would a 2-0 Bruins lead, sculpted at any point in the game, be the answer to reversing both trends?