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The Boston Bruins are dealing with some bad news prior to their season series finale showdown with the Montreal Canadiens at the Bell Centre tonight. First line center
David Krejci (upper-body) will not play tonight. Energetic winger
David Pastrnak (upper-body) is questionable.
But the best news in all of this? A win tonight and Montreal coach
Michel Therrien, a thorn in the B’s side from the moment he stepped back behind the Canadiens bench, might be out of a job.
In four seasons (back) with the Habs, Therrien’s club has won 13 of their 16 regular-season head-to-head meetings with the Bruins, and have outscored Boston 52-32 over that stretch. Include postseason play and the B’s have won just six of the 23 showdowns (outscored 72-48).
For whatever reason (I can point to a few, mainly Carey Price and a Habs attack that seriously always converts on its chances against the Bruins), the Black and Gold have not figured out how to play their brand of hockey against the Canadiens. Their latest clash, a 5-1 embarrassment of the Bruins in front of nearly 70,000 in Foxboro, Massachusetts’ own Gillette Stadium, was the latest case study.
That game, however, was just one of the Habs’ four wins (and two of their nine points) over the last 20. This Montreal team can’t score. Can’t defend. And without Price, can’t make saves, either. That’s evident by a failure to string together a winning streak and their current four-game losing streak.
They are a wounded animal in a city where the pressure is always ready to pop and Therrien, twice fired in the middle of the season in his NHL coaching career (including once in Montreal), is on the hot seat.
A Boston win tonight cranks that pressure up even more, and maybe Therrien, the conductor of what’s been a four-year nightmare for the B’s-Canadiens rivalry (from the Boston perspective), is out of work.
Obviously, the Canadiens’ success over the Bruins goes beyond Therrien’s teachings (which have left more out in the cold -- veterans and rookies alike -- than he’d be willing to admit), but his successful gameplanning around what the Bruins do best and taking it away from them has been second to none.
Watch a Bruins-Canadiens game and watch how the Canadiens attack a slow-footed Boston defense, clog the alleys for their breakouts, and stifle their shots from the point (and push pace the other way).
It’s a buy-in that’s made Bruin Killers out of former NHL castaways like Dale Weise.
And one that’s haunted the Bruins for far too long.
In net, it will be
Tuukka Rask. Rask stopped 27-of-29 in last Saturday’s victory over Toronto, his first win since Dec. 29, and comes into play with just four wins and a .906 save percentage in 23 career games against Montreal. Those overall career figure somehow include an impressive four wins and .924 save percentage in 10 games in Montreal’s barn for the 28-year-old netminder.
Montreal counters with
Mike Condon.
Condon allowed four goals on 22 shots in his last start, his third loss in a row, and comes into action with just three wins in his last 10 games. The Massachusetts native has been strong against the Bruins, though, with a 27-of-28 showing to his credit over that stretch, and two wins and a .927 save percentage in three career games against the Black and Gold (all this season).
Forward
Tyler Randell and defenseman
Joe Morrow are the expected healthy scratches for the Bruins, while Adam McQuaid remains out of action for the club.
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter since 2013, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.
Boston Bruins Blogger •Bruins Feature Columnist • 
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