Nobody averages more goals a game than the Northeast leading Boston Bruins. At 3.36 goals a game, .13 better than the second best Philadelphia Flyers, there's no doubting the Bruins as an offensively capable club. Well, that's unless they play
Henrik Lundqvist and the New York Rangers.
To put it simply, Lundqvist has owned the Bruins since arriving to the scene back in 2005-06. In 24 career games against Boston, the 29-year-old Swede has 17 wins, a .947 save-percentage, and has never allowed more than three goals to the B's. Seriously. Oh, and in his last five starts against Boston, the King of New York is 4-1-0 with a 1.98 goals-against-average. Normally, these numbers wouldn't startle a Bruins fan given the typical rank of the Blueshirts when it comes to the Eastern Conference standings.
But now, with a serious contender in front of Lundqvist, solving the Lundqvist enigma is as dire as ever. Trailing New York, currently sitting pretty as the number one seed in the East, by five points in the standings, this will be the Bruins' second crack at a Rangers club that spoiled their Saturday exactly 30 days ago. This time around though, the Bruins are going to try and play the role of heartbreakers in the Hub.
Squaring off in the second of four showdowns, the B's and Rangers taking their act to Broadway for the final two match-ups after tonight, the Bruins will likely give the start to the 37-year-old Thomas. With just four wins in 14 career games against New York, Thomas is coming off a mild 19-save performance in Saturday's 4-3 shootout win over the Nashville Predators.
Game-Changers
Look for Boston defensemen
Andrew Ference to be involve in more ways than one tonight. While the 32-year-old defensemen isn't a noted scoring presence, he had a goal and an assist in the only meeting between the Bruins and Rangers this year, along with a dirty hit that forced
Ryan McDonagh out of the game. While the young New York d-man would return to play, scoring a goal and with a plus-8 rating in eight games since the hit, expect the Rangers to make Ference answer the bell tonight. Or try to, anyways.
How's this for a stat? Over the past calendar year, the Rangers are 23-0-3 when
Ryan Callahan scores a goal. Sitting one goal away from matching his career-high of 23, set last year, the Blueshirts' captain comes into play with five goals in his last three games.
B's ink Boychuk to three-year extension
Roses are red, for three more years Boychuk's a Bruin, and I'm not sure what GM
Peter Chiarelli is doing. Stealing the Valentine's Day headlines, forcing bloggers to try to be as witty as can be, sources have confirmed that the Bruins have agreed to terms on a three-year extension with blue-liner
Johnny Boychuk.
The extension to the 28-year-old Boychuk, who was set to become a free-agent at year's end, comes with a cap-hit of 3.34 million dollars a year. Slating Boychuk the second highest paid defensemen on the B's next year, making 90,000 dollars more than
Dennis Seidenberg, the deal comes with a few question marks as to what the heck the thinking here is in terms of what Boychuk brings to the Bruins.
With three goals and 10 points in 52 games this year, the 61st overall pick from the '02 Draft has become a staple on Boston's blue-line since the 2009-10 season, and has skated as a Bruin in 173 of his 177 career games at the NHL level, tallying 11 goals and 30 assists with a plus-49 rating.
In the now, the deal makes sense given the 'lesser of two evils' approach the Bruins took when it came to re-upping either Boychuk or the maddening
Joe Corvo, but Boychuk's rather steep 3.34M cap-hit comes with some concerns as to what the future holds for the Bruins' cap.
Leaving Chiarelli and the B's a little less than nine million dollars to decide on the entire fourth line, along with
Chris Kelly,
Benoit Pouliot, and restricted free-agent
Tuukka Rask. That's before
Marc Savard's cap-hit is placed on the long term injured reserve -- freeing up a little over four million -- and assuming that the cap stays the same at 64.3 million dollars.
The pros? Defensive tend to enter this prime around this time, the dude has playoff experience, he fits into the B's system well and man, can Boychuk hit. But still, almost 3.5 million dollars? Not sure if I'm all about that, especially for a guy whose defensive lapses are masked by playing with
Zdeno Chara on a nightly basis.
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