Boston Bruins: Quick, Productive Start Critical to Rematch With Maple Leafs

In season series as quantitative as that of the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs, some believe that the longer the fortunes stay exclusively in one party’s favor, the tougher that upper hand gets to maintain.

Is there merit to the myth? That shall be put to the test on Saturday when the Bruins host the Leafs in the fourth installment of their six-game head-to-head itinerary, only three nights after Boston improved to 3-0-0 with a 6-3 triumph in Toronto.

For the Bruins, the challenge is actually doubled given that they are kicking off their December slate on the heels of an undefeated (12-0-1) run through November. As an added bonus, they are vying to uphold the lead for tops in the Northeast Division that they just usurped from these same Maple Leafs on Wednesday.

But extending their winning streak against Toronto to four games and their overall point-getting streak to 14 can be made more doable if they utilize their home-ice advantage wisely. It starts with keeping the likes of Phil Kessel on a fault line.

Kessel, who tallied an assist on Wednesday but still managed an acrid minus-three rating, will pay his eighth business trip to TD Garden since the Bruins’ mansion stopped being his workplace. In each of his previous seven visits, the rewards his new mates have reaped have come concurrently with his own performance.

When Kessel gets at least one point on Boston ice, he gets two. So do the Leafs, who are 2-0-0 when Kessel contributes in front of his old rooters.

Conversely, when he is barred from the scoresheet, Toronto usually adds to its regulation loss total (0-4-1).

In a pair of return trips in December 2009, Kessel was kept arid while accruing a minus-three and the Bruins won both meetings by a cumulative 12-4 score. Later that season, he was a nonfactor once more, although the Leafs did scrape out a point in an eventual shootout loss.

Last year’s season series opener was the introduction of the “Thank you, Kessel!” serenade as Tyler Seguin outscored the entire Toronto roster as part of a 2-0 Boston triumph. But in subsequent encounters at the Garden, Kessel tallied a pair of goals in a 4-3 regulation victory, and then two helpers en route to a 4-3 shootout win.

Less than two months ago, the once-struggling Bruins momentarily snapped out of their funk and slapped the Leafs with their first regulation loss. In that Oct. 20 clash, Kessel was pointless and in the red once more as his team brooked a 6-2 battering.

With Kessel continuing to lead his team and the league in production, shutting him down is a greater key to topping Toronto than ever before. If Boston can fetter the most integral piece of the Leafs’ offense and sic another overwhelmingly hostile audience of 17,565 on him, odds are the visitors’ morale tanks will be punctured.

On top of that, though, the Bruins need to at least pelt presumptive starter Jonas Gustavsson early and often, if not penetrate him with a couple of unanswered strikes before the first intermission. That could prove especially beneficial on Saturday, when the Leafs will reportedly welcome back the long-injured James Reimer, but place him in the backup position.

Gustavsson is 0-2-0 in three bouts with Boston so far, including a vain relief outing Nov. 5, authorizing 13 goals in a total of 143 minutes and 24 seconds.

Reimer, on the other hand, has yet to face the Bruins and is still 4-0-1 on the year, having claimed all of the credit for the five-game unbeaten streak that started Toronto’s season.

If Gustavsson, like Kessel, proves to be plagued by the black and gold yet again, Leafs’ head coach Ron Wilson may summon Reimer for a sooner-than-planned return to extramural action.

At that, he would be asking a first-year full-time NHLer who has not played in six weeks to hop in on the fly stop the bleeding against a season-long nemesis that neither Gustavsson nor crease colleague Ben Scrivens has been able to tame.

A savory scenario for a Boston buff, to be sure, but the Bruins will be under the brunt of the pressure to start Saturday’s matchup.

The end of Toronto’s woes against them is drawing inevitably closer, so it is on them to emphatically ensure that the end is not too soon.