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Brad Marchand praises Jakub Lauko’s painful, last-second play against Leafs
"It just shows the dedication to the game and the details.”
Simon Benoit’s shot from the point wasn’t going to alter the outcome of the Bruins’ 5-1 win over the Maple Leafs on Saturday night.
Even if the blast from the Toronto defenseman somehow managed to sail past Jeremy Swayman, Boston would have still held a three-goal cushion — with less than a second to go in regulation.
But those circumstances meant little to Bruins winger Jakub Lauko as he dove to the frozen sheet and blocked Benoit’s salvo.
It was a painful play by the 24-year-old forward that easily could have been lost in the shuffle amid Boston’s convincing Game 1 win. But Lauko’s commitment to keeping pucks away from Swayman — regardless of what registered on the clock — did not go unnoticed by his captain, Brad Marchand.
“Lauks’ effort there — five seconds left and blocking that shot. Like, he doesn’t need to do that, it’s 5-1 at that point,” Marchand said postgame after Boston’s win. “But it just shows the dedication to the game and the details.”
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For Lauko, there was no hesitation when it came to dropping to the ice as the final seconds ticked off the clock — even with the expected pain that awaited.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s 5-1 or 1-1 or whatever,” Lauko said Sunday. “You’re there to do a job. It was my job to block the shot, even though there was one second left.”
Lauko’s last-second block served as an emphatic stamp on a night where the pesky Bruins forward injected some much-needed speed and snarl into Boston’s bottom-six personnel. He doled out five hits in his 11:31 of ice time, while also landing two shots on net.
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“Our bottom six, we are there to be physical on those guys, to take energy from their defensemen. … That’s our job,” Lauko noted. “And we needed to establish that early.”
It was an encouraging start to a new playoff run for Lauko, who struggled at times to gain traction during Boston’s 2023 first-round exit against the Panthers.
Slotted in on a third-line role next to Trent Frederic and Morgan Geekie on Sunday, Lauko excelled by adhering to a simple, straight-line approach.
“I thought last year, there was an excitement to him to play and I actually thought in Games 1 and 2, he was one of our better forwards for what his role is,” Jim Montgomery noted of Lauko’s game. “I thought last night he was excited and also a little more comfortable like handling pucks and wanting to go out there and be out there more.”
The Lauko-Geekie-Frederic line’s most impactful shift came earlier in the third period. Toronto controlled play at the start of the final frame, culminating in a tally from David Kampf at 1:49.
Just minutes later, a punishing shift from Boston’s third line snuffed out whatever offensive momentum the Leafs generated, with Geekie crunching Nicholas Robertson against the glass and Lauko eventually drawing an interference call against Jake McCabe.
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“We just went in there and said ‘Hey, let’s have a shift, let’s wear them down, let’s make something happen,’” Lauko said of his line’s approach after Kampf’s goal. “We had a couple good opportunities to score. Geeks had a great hit before. We were able to draw a penalty so it was huge. We need to do it more often as a line and keep growing our game.”
If the Bruins plan on stretching their season into late May and June, more painful blocks will have to be prescribed for Lauko and Boston’s bottom-six skaters.
But given his commitment to stepping in front of a last-second shot on Saturday, Lauko should have few qualms about the punishment that awaits — especially as the stakes continue to be raised.
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