Chris Bourque had gone so long without a goal, he almost forgot what it felt like.
Bourque, the son of former Bruins icon Ray Bourque, scored his first goal with Boston in a 1-0 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday night.
The 5-foot-8 Bourque crashed the net to stuff in a nifty angled pass from behind the net from Chris Kelly at 8:54. Bourque's only other NHL goal was scored in December 2008 when he played for the Washington Capitals.
''I kind of blacked out I was so excited,'' Bourque said. ''I don't think I've scored an NHL goal in four years.''
The Bourques are the fifth father-son combination to play for the Bruins. Chris led the AHL in scoring in 2011-12 with 92 points for Hershey. Brother Ryan is currently playing for the Rangers' AHL farm team in Connecticut.
Since 2007-08, Chris Bourque has played 13 games for the Capitals, 20 for Pittsburgh, and seven for Boston.
''It was nice to see him score that goal,'' Boston coach Claude Julien said. ''That's what we've been talking about. We know he's very capable of doing those kinds of things. The confidence he had - you could tell he was a different player. It was nice for him to get that monkey of his back and get the winning goal.
''I joked around with him before the game and told him that I'd bag skate him if he didn't score.''
The Bruins threatened throughout the tightly played game, but James Reimer stopped 33 shots from all angles as Boston came at him in waves.
''James Reimer gave us a chance,'' Maple Leafs coach Randy Carlyle said. ''That's all you can ask of your goaltender. I thought he made some big stops.''
Toronto turned over the puck too often at the Boston blue line and got bottled up in the neutral ice.
''That's the way they play, and they're a good team,'' Carlyle said. ''They did what they had to do to be effective to play a road game and we didn't do enough of the things that we're capable of to establish a strong home game in the 60 minutes.''
The Bruins (6-1-1) limited the Leafs to 21 shots and killed off two penalties in the last nine minutes to hang on to beat Toronto (4-4).
''We were close, and close isn't good enough,'' Maple Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf said. ''We did a lot of good things but we did a lot of things that we felt we could be better at.''
This was the first meeting between the teams this season. Boston won all six matchups last season, outscoring the Maple Leafs 36-10. The one-sided series included 7-0 and 8-0 margins.
Boston is 24-5-5 in its last 34 games against Toronto and 13-2-3 in its past 18 visits to Toronto.
Tuukka Rask, acquired from Toronto for Andrew Raycroft in 2006, earned the win.
''That was our type of hockey defensively, and for the most part offensively, too,'' Rask said.
Phil Kessel came into the game in search of his first goal - and 100th with Toronto - despite leading the Maple Leafs with 33 shots in the seven previous games. He has four assists.
Kessel's first drive came midway through the second period and glanced off the crossbar.
A Toronto goal was called off at 11:32 for goalie interference. Rask seemed to come out of his crease and run into Nazem Kadri as he tried to stop Cody Franson's shot from the point. Carlyle was incensed by the call after watching the replay on the big screen.
Boston won 17 of 21 faceoffs in the first period.
The Bruins had a goal disallowed at 6:30 of the second when the puck appeared to deflect off Seguin's skate past a prone Reimer. The NHL said the referee was in the process of calling the play dead before the puck went in, because of incidental contact between Boston's Brad Marchand and Reimer.
Marchand ended up crashing into the end boards on the play and went to the dressing room. He didn't finish the game.
Reimer was sharp in the second, when Boston outshot Toronto 12-6. Rask was also up to the task, stopping Kessel from close range with five minutes remaining.
The Bruins, killing off a slashing penalty to Seguin, hit the post with the Maple Leafs net empty with a minute remaining.
The Bruins were coming off their first regulation loss of the season, a 7-4 defeat against Buffalo on Thursday. They had given up only 12 goals in their previous six games.
Toronto had won two straight.
NOTES: Miami Heat star LeBron Jones, who was in attendance, tweeted: ''At my first hockey game. Pretty Damn cool.'' James will be back in the arena on Sunday to play the Raptors. ... This was Boston's third away game in eight contests. They will wrap up their two-game trip to Canada on Wednesday at Montreal. ... Toronto will concludes its three-game homestand on Monday against Carolina. ... Jamie Tardif, called up from the Providence Bruins, made his NHL debut at 28 in his seventh pro season. Tardif, who has played 449 games in the ECHL and AHL since turning pro in 2006-07, led the Bruins out for warmups.
