Boston Bruins Game Preview

The Wildly inconsistent Boston Bruins are back at it again on Wednesday night against the New York Rangers. The Bruins sit at 6-4-3 while the Rangers are 7-7-2 on the young season. The Bruins haven’t put out their morning lines yet but it looks unlikely that Marchand will be playing tonight. With Krejci, Backes, Spooner, McQuaid and now Marchand sidelined the Bruins are once again in the hurt locker. However, that didn’t seem to affect them on Monday night as they downed the Wild 5-3.They did suffer a late scare though as the Wild brought the score to 4-3 with three minutes remaining but Schaller potted the empty netter to secure the win.

The Rangers are riding high on a four game win streak right now and they are being lead by Mika Zibanejad who is leading the team with 17 points and has 11 points in the last seven games. The Rangers haven’t announced their goalie for tonight but with a day off yesterday they’ll likely turn back to Lundqvist to start again. Lundqvist had a rough start to the year but has turned things around lately and has been in net for the past four games. Shattenkirk has been the puck moving defenseman the Rangers needed and has 15 points on the year but for all his offense he hasn’t been great in the defensive zone sitting with a -6 rating on the year.

The Bruins still haven’t put it all together and played a full 60 minutes of hockey and to beat a team like the Rangers, they’re gonna have to. The Bruins received depth scoring from DeBrusk, Kuraly and Vatrano finally potted his first of the year. If Vatrano can begin to find his scoring touch the Bruins can move him up the lineup and put him on one of the top two lines. Bruins received a jolt from Szwarz as he tallied two assists in the Monday night win. Pastrnak has been feeling it lately and has recorded 6 points in his last four contests.

I’m beginning to sound like a broken record saying the Bruins youth needs to produce but it still holds true. This is the first year in a long time the Bruins didn’t sign veterans to fill the bottom of the lineup and this is how the learning curve goes for young players. Once the youth pans out ,which could take a full season, the Bruins will return to being a contender and be back in the Cup mix.

Tonight’s game is being broadcast on NBCSN at 8:00 be sure to tune in.

Written By Tyler Smith (@TylerSmith4386)