It's Jan. 30, and the Montreal Canadiens are at the TD Garden for the first time this year.
Like last weekend in Philadelphia, this distance between rivals doesn't feel right.
For me, battles between the Boston Bruins and (loathed) Habs were the highlight of the regular season. In high school, we'd pack into the Commuter Rail out of Wilmington, head into the Garden, watch as thousands of Montreal fans invaded the rink, and then ultimately leave cursing Alex Kovalev's name to hell. It was a great time to be alive.
The times have changed though: Kovalev's long gone, the Habs are no longer the juggernaut fans in Boston became accustomed to, and the Bruins are straight rollin' through the division. Entering play with three-straight six-goal games, Claude Julien isn't settling for a letdown against a team that currently trails the B's by 10 points in the division.
"Even though we’ve scored six goals it doesn’t mean you're playing a perfect game. There are some areas we still look at after games. We bring players in and show them different things that happened," Julien said this afternoon.
"You're always trying to improve yourself. We’ve been pretty good at not getting satisfied when those kind of things happen. Right now it’s not so much about worrying about that more than continuing to bring the type of effort that we brought the last little while."
Tonight, the Bruins will look to draw the season series with Montreal to an even 1-1, with the Canadiens taking the last meeting between the two back on Dec. 5 by a 2-1 final.
And you'd have to like their odds against a Habs club that's won just four of their last ten and starting backup netminder, Peter Budaj.
Despite a solid .921 save percentage and 2.06 goals against average in 2013-14, the 31-year-old Budaj has not won a game since Dec. 4, and has posted an .898 save percentage in six appearances (three starts) since that win. Budaj has three wins in five career games against the Bruins, allowing 10 goals on 101 shots thrown his way.
The Bruins will counter with Tuukka Rask for the third straight game. The 26-year-old Rask has allowed just five goals in his last three starts, and is on the heels of a 28-of-30 showing against Florida on Tuesday night. But in 13 career starts against Montreal, Rask has just two wins and a .903 save percentage, undoubtedly his worst figures against any divisional opponent. Rask stopped 25-of-27 in a loss to the Habs earlier this season.
Boston will roll the same lineup as they did on Tuesday night, with Chris Kelly being the lone variable. Kelly started the night on the fourth line with Gregory Campbell and Shawn Thornton, but took some third period shifts with Carl Soderberg and Loui Eriksson on the Bruins' third line.