Leafs earning respect from Bruins

Over the past four seasons with the Boston Bruins, Johnny Boychuk has faced the Toronto Maple Leafs on 21 different occasions.

The majority of those games were comfortable Boston victories.

But the tough-as-nails defenceman has started detecting a change in the Maple Leafs — one that has been hammered home during these playoffs. Even though the Bruins have a chance to close out Toronto in just five games with a win on Friday, Boychuk refers to his opponent as a “different team.”

“It looks like they finally care,” he said Thursday afternoon at TD Garden. “Not that they didn’t before, but they have a lot more emotion in their game. … They’re battling.”

In other words, they’ve come a long way.

After watching how well the Leafs played Boston in the regular season and then seeing them take it to another level during this playoff series, it is easy to forget just how wide the canyon was between these franchises prior to that.

The Bruins embarrassed Toronto last year.

They won all six games by a combined score of 36-10, including an 8-0 pounding shortly after Randy Carlyle was hired that made the Leafs coach realize just how big of a challenge he was facing. Carlyle now looks back on that beating as a pivotal moment.

Viewed in the big picture, the Leafs should take some satisfaction from their performance in Game 4 even though it ended with a heartbreaking 4-3 loss that pushed them to the brink of elimination.

Toronto finished the night with the advantage in shots (48-45), hits (71-49), blocked shots (31-20) and posts struck in overtime (1-0).

No wonder the Bruins felt a tad fortunate to come home with the victory on Wednesday night after playoff scoring leader David Krejci completed his hat trick.

“I feel like at certain points last night they were outplaying us,” said Boston forward Rich Peverley. “We were lucky to get that goal.”

Added Boychuk: “Last night in overtime they were taking it to us and (the series) could have been 2-2.”

That was the message coach Claude Julien delivered to his team when everyone gathered for a meeting about 12 hours after the Game 4 victory.

Even with a stranglehold on this best-of-seven, none of the Bruins seemed to be getting too far ahead of themselves. Part of that is rooted in Boston’s experience of blowing a 3-0 series lead to Philadelphia in 2010, but it’s also a nod to the challenge they’ve received from Toronto so far.

“(This series) should be viewed as two teams playing really good hockey right now,” said Julien. “There’s a lot of teams that Leafs squad would have beat playing the way they did (in Game 4) and we’re … fortunate that we played well enough and found a way to score that overtime goal to get that win.

“It was a real good game that could have gone either way.”

The Leafs have been pleased with the play of top forwards Phil Kessel, Joffrey Lupul and James van Riemsdyk. They have carried the team offensively and Kessel has eliminated any talk about him being unable to perform against his former team once and for all.

Beyond that, there has been growth in the overall willingness to compete — a trait that helps them overcome some shortfalls in talent.

“It’s like night and day,” Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask said of this year’s Leafs versus the team of a year ago.

“They never give up, they battle really hard, they play for each other,” he added. “In the past we had a couple blowout games against them, when we scored a couple goals and they just never got it back.

“This year it’s been really different for them — they’ll battle for 60 minutes.”

The Bruins are already starting to sport some of the battle scars synonymous with playoff hockey. They have had to pay a physical price to gain an edge in this series.

Chris Kelly (high stick) and Milan Lucic (puck to the face) were each stitched up on Wednesday night while Boychuk had to work off the sting of seven blocked shots. Others are hurting too.

There seems to be a general respect growing among two teams who have played each other hard between the whistles but haven’t gone over the line.

“It’s been honest battles and none of that (crap) that sometimes goes on in playoffs,” said Rask.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons the Boston players were so willing to praise their opponents.

None of the comments sounded like gamesmanship or something that was being said just to be polite. In fact, the trend started during the regular season when Julien referred to Toronto as “contenders.”

“I say it because I mean it,” he explained Thursday. “Whatever approach they’ve taken — maybe they’ve got that everything-to-gain-, nothing-to-lose mentality – – it’s worked for them. …

“They’re growing at a big pace right now.”

It is for that reason that Boston should have no trouble getting focused on ending this series Friday night.

While history and logic suggest that Toronto is unlikely to pull off a comeback, no one in the Bruins dressing-room wants to see how much better their opponent might get if they’re allowed to stick around.

“You can’t take anything for granted because they’re a good hockey team and they work hard,” said Boychuk. “You can’t give them any life because if you do there’s a good chance that they could come back.”