Just the facts
- When: Tonight, 7:30 PM
- Where: TD Garden – Boston, MA
- How to follow: ESPN, 98.5 The Sports Hub
- Opposing perspective: Litter Box Cats
Know your enemy
- 3-4-0, 6PTS, T-4th in the Atlantic Division
- Brad Marchand: 3G-3A-6PTS; Anton Lundell: 2G-3A-5PTS; Evan Rodrigues: 2G-2A-4PTS
- Sergei Bobrovsky: 3-2-0, 2.02 GAA, .917 save percentage
Game notes
- Brad Marchand is back! The longtime Bruin is returning for the first time since being traded last spring in what is sure to be a charged atmosphere at TD Garden.
- With names like Matthew Tkachuk and Aleksander Barkov on the shelf, Marchand is actually Florida’s leading scorer on the young season.
- One last Marchand item: for the nostalgic among us, Marchand reported that he had dinner with Zdeno Chara, Adam McQuaid, Patrice Bergeron, and Tuukka Rask on Sunday night. We are old.
- In an odd turn of events, both teams are coming into tonight’s game as losers of four games in a row. The Panthers were shutout by the Buffalo Sabres 3-0 last time out. Given each team’s current run of form, this could be the first NHL game where neither team earns a point. HISTORY!
- To make it even MORE odd, both teams also won their first three games of this season.
- Florida has struggled to score goals early in the season, averaging just 2.14 goals per game; that figure is good for 30th in the NHL. Sam Bennett, a force for Florida in last season’s playoffs, has just one goal to his name thus far.
- While it certainly doesn’t mean a ton in the grand scheme of things, I was surprised to see that the Bruins currently own the league’s third-best face-off percentage at 55.9%.
- Hampus Lindholm missed Sunday’s game as part of the team’s efforts to manage his return from injury, so he’s likely to draw back in tonight.
See
ya tonight!
