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It’s been just two games, so the sample size is miniscule, but it’s obvious that the Bruins played down to their absolute worst possible level in Monday’s 4-0 matinee loss to the Avalanche back in Boston.
Their offense was nonexistent, their defense had breakdowns, and their special teams game let them down (and against a Colorado penalty kill that entered that game as the league’s worst).
So it’s not hard to see why the Bruins are ready for another crack against the Avalanche.
“It’s nice when you don’t feel that you’ve played your best,… Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy said of his club’s instant rematch with the Avs tonight at the Pepsi Center. “For us, we want to prove that we’re a better team than we showed Monday afternoon in Boston, and we want to play to our standard. We talked about this last year; It’s 82 games a year you want to play to your standard. We feel we’re a good hockey team, and if we do [play to our standard], we’ll win our share of games.…
This game will feature a rematch in the crease, too, as the Bruins’ Tuukka Rask and Colorado netminder Semyon Varlamov are the expected starters for tonight’s tilt.
It’s been a rough start to the year for the 30-year-old Rask, who has a 1-1-0 record and .882 through the first two games of the season, and his 19-of-22 loss to the Avalanche was as ugly as can be. But Rask has been strong in two career road games against the Avalanche, with one win and a .965 save percentage. Rask was 17-10-4 with a .914 save percentage away from the Garden a season ago.
Varlamov, meanwhile, has been incredible for the Avalanche through his first two appearances of the new season, with two wins and stops on all but two of the 68 shots he’s faced thus far (a .971 save percentage). Varlamov has been perfect at even-strength, too, with a perfect 45-for-45 mark. He has three wins and a .931 save percentage in nine career head-to-heads with the Black and Gold.
The big lineup change for the Bruins will come with Danton Heinen plugged into the bottom six and on a line with Tim Schaller and Sean Kuraly. The 22-year-old Heinen recorded an assist in last weekend’s 5-2 P-Bruins victory over the Springfield Thunderbirds, and has skated in eight NHL games in his career, with zero points and seven shots on net to go with a minus-3 rating.
“I saw a growth in his game in terms of being able to play not just with a skilled line-rush line, he showed us that in the last [preseason] game in Chicago,… Cassidy said of Heinen, who was originally a victim of a training camp numbers game. “He was winning pucks below the goal line, and making plays from there, so that’s the type of line they are. He’ll add a little skill to that line, maybe a little finish, but shouldn’t get in their way either in terms of playing a north-south game.…
So in addition to the injured Bergeron, center Austin Czarnik and d-man Paul Postma are expected sit this game out, though as healthy scratches for the B’s. This will be the third straight game that the veteran Postma has sat as a scratch, and the Bruins do not seem too worried about him developing any rink rust, as this is a situation that they believe he’s used to from his time with the Jets.
The Bruins have not defeated the Avalanche in Boston since 1998, of course, but they are 7-1-1 in their last nine games in Denver, and have grabbed at least one point in six straight games there.
Ty Anderson is the Boston Bruins beat writer for WEEI.com, and has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010. He can be heard on the Saturday Skate program on 93.7 WEEI (Boston), and has been part of the Boston Chapter of the PHWA since 2013. Contact him on Twitter or send him an email at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.