What is the story about?
Just the facts
- When: Tonight, 8ish PM
- Where: TD Garden – Boston, MA
- How to follow: ESPN, 98.5 The Sports Hub
- Opposing perspective: Blueshirt Banter
Know your enemy
- Last season: 34-39-9, 77PTS, last in the Eastern Conference
Game notes
- Welcome to a new season, folks! You made it through the slog that is the offseason, random Morning Skates, nothing to argue about, etc. Now, hope/content springs eternal as the 2026-2027 Bruins season begins.
- This game will be broadcast nationally on ESPN as the second game of a double-header; the first game, scheduled for 5 PM, will feature the Hurricanes raising their Stanley Cup champions banner before hosting the Panthers. Given the pomp and circumstance, plus general ESPN timekeeping, I’d assume this game doesn’t start until 10-15 minutes after 8 PM, but I could be wrong.
- This game will also be part of a Boston-New York doubleheader, with the Yankees hosting the Red Sox in the first game of their three-game Wild Card series in the Bronx.
- The Rangers were bad last season. Very, very, very bad, in fact. For that, they were rewarded with the third-best odds of landing the #1 pick in last June’s draft, only to see them instead fall two spots and pick fifth.
- However, their selection at #5, Latvian blueliner Alberts Smits, had a strong training camp and made the NHL roster, with the expectation that he’ll make his NHL debut tonight.
- This season, our friends at Blueshirt Banter are expecting significant improvement, with most of their contributors pegging the Rangers to be a playoff team, albeit a fringe wild card team at that.
- The Rangers made a couple of important additions over the summer, acquiring Pavel Dorofeyev from Vegas and Marcus Pettersson from Vancouver. The Blueshirts also return several familiar faces up front, including JT Miller, Mika Zibanejad, and Alexis Lafreniere.
- Igor Shesterkin remains a very good goalie, putting up respectable numbers last year on a bad Rangers team. This year, he’ll be backed up (at least initially) by former Bruin Joonas Korpisalo.
- For the B’s, you know the drill (for the most part) at this point: David Pastrnak will be expected to carry the load offensively, while the B’s will hope for another productive year for Morgan Geekie, some solid production/growth from JJ Peterka, etc.
- Marco Sturm will have options at his disposal on defense, as the B’s break camp with eight defensemen (though they’ll have seven temporarily with Charlie McAvoy suspended).
We’re
back at it, folks! See ya tonight!
