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Sheldon Keefe had to check the calendar back in his office after a high-speed, hard-hitting late-stage overtime loss to Boston  on Saturday night at Scotiabank Arena. 

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“Not your typical December hockey game,” the Maple Leafs coach said of clawing back a point from the division leaders with two rallies before Bruins captain Brad Marchand’s 4-3 extra-time winner. “Hard-played game, not a lot between the two teams, the referees let them play. I thought our guys hung in there and got us a point. 

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“We found our way to the interior of the rink against a team that makes it really hard to do so.” 

Pre-game, Keefe urged his team to have every facet of its game tuned in if it hoped to slow the Bruins. Save for a couple of own-zone letdowns, that certainly transpired on offence with Auston Matthews back on the scoresheet after five games — he scored twice, including the equalizer with 4.8 seconds remaining — and Max Domi’s long-awaited first goal as a Leaf, creating a short-lived 2-2 tie in the third period. 

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“I’ve said it since Day 1, I’m super-happy to be playing at home in front of my hometown fans and enjoy every second of it,” Domi said. “It feels good to contribute, but it’s irrelevant when you don’t win.” 

It had been 6,454 days since Max’s father Tie’s last goal as a Leaf, on April 1, 2006. 

Joseph Woll was less than eight seconds away from a chance to win a club-record third straight shootout at home when William Nylander blew a tire at centre ice, lost the puck to send Pavel Zacha in alone on a breakaway. Woll made the stop but was out of position when Zacha retrieved the puck and chipped it in front to Marchand, who gloved it on to his stick and ripped home the game-winner into the open side with eight seconds remaining.

Woll made 33 saves. 

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“He stands his ground and he’s played a lot of hockey here now,” Keefe praised. “He’s had no easy nights and this has been tremendous growth for him in a very difficult week.” 

Boston, which was supposed to come down to Earth without the retired Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, continues to dominate the Atlantic Division, seven points up on the Leafs, who are slightly behind Florida and Detroit. It was Boston’s second extra-time one-goal win over Toronto. 

Defensively, the Leafs let Kevin Shattenkirk and Trent Frederic get behind them for goals and Morgan Rielly was on for all four against, but they stayed with Boston hit for hit. 

“It was tight at the end and you could feel the intensity rising,” said defenceman Simon Benoit. “But it’s good for us, those are good games to prepare for the playoffs.”  

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The Leafs out-shot Boston 40-37. David Pastrnak, using Rielly as a partial screen, snapped one past Woll in his first start against the team he watched up close a few years while attending Boston College. Woll bounced back on a Boston power play, assessed for a needless boarding call on Ryan Reaves with Matthew Poitras’ back to him.   

Reaves and Marchand were the pre-game entertainment in this first meeting since Boston’s captain knocked Timothy Liljegren off his skates and caused a high ankle sprain.    

That Marchand got nothing but a lecture from Reaves and other Leafs sparked a team meeting after that game, though Reaves said he wasn’t on a search and destroy mission Saturday. 

“We’ve addressed (standing up for teammates) the last couple of weeks and especially after (Liljegren),” Reaves said.  “It’s a full team effort up and down the ice. 

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“Marchand is not going to fight you for sure. You just have to play him hard, try and bait him into whatever, but do it smartly. He’ll bait you and try and make you do something stupid.” 

Reaves shared a story that during their verbal exchanges Marchand “likes to tell me he makes a lot more money than I do. But that doesn’t bother me. A lot of players do.”  

Marchand felt the Leafs made too dramatic an issue of what he thought were unintended consequences of Liljegren having his feet taken out as he crashed into the boards. 

“Their coach is being emotional, trying to get them be there for one another and that’s what good teams do,” he said. “But again, there wasn’t a (physical) response because there wasn’t a bad play. You get tied up trying to battle for positioning on a puck and things happen.” 

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With Reaves a frequent scratch, Mark Giordano, Domi and Noah Gregor all got into fights in recent matches. 

‘Over the years, to me, we’ve addressed those situations fine, other times maybe not,” Keefe said. “I know everybody here watches just us for the most part, but you turn on the TV and there’s a lot of teams who don’t blow up and sell the farm every single time someone gets hit. You have to play hockey, too.” 

That was the story on Saturday. 

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