Boston Bruins Face NHL’s Two Top Teams
Boston Bruins Face NHL’s Two Top Teams
It’s one thing to beat the Calgary Flames, as the Boston Bruins did the other night. After all, only three teams in the National Hockey League have fewer points than the Flames, and the Bruins will take a home win any way they can get it.
What lies ahead next for the Bruins, though, is much tougher competition. The reigning Stanley Cup Champions are in tonight. The Chicago Blackhawks are the class of the Western Conference, pacing the way with 85 points and a goal differential of +30. They are led by the league’s leading scorer, Patrick Kane, who wears number 88 and has exactly that many points. His next point will mark a career high. Last night he recorded three points (1G, 2A) for his league-leading 22nd multi-point game of the year in a 5-2 win over Detroit.
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As if the Blackhawks aren’t already loaded, what with the likes of Jonathan Toews, Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook and Corey Crawford, they also have the leading rookie scorer in Artemi Panarin, whose 24 goals and 35 points respectively lead all freshmen. To add more strength to Chicago’s already potent line-up, they added forwards Andrew Ladd, Dale Weise, and Tomas Fleischmann, and defenseman Christian Ehrhoff recently.
While the Blackhawks are a more than formidable foe, the best in the league comes to town on Saturday night. The Washington Capitals lead all teams in wins (47,) points (88,) and goals per game with 3.3. They have a goal differential of a whopping 62, which is twice that of the Blackhawks who are second best in the league with 32.
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It’s not just Alex Ovechkin who puts points up. Although he leads the league in goals with 41, he is only the third leading scorer on his team with 59 points. Centers Evgeny Kuznetzov and Nicklas Backstrom lead the Caps in scoring with 66 and 60 points, respectively.
To beat the Capitals, the Bruins will have to outscore them, and to do that, they’ll have to put the puck past goalie Braden Holtby. They haven’t had much luck with that in the past two years. In two games this year, they’ve scored 3 goals on him, with Patrice Bergeron, Loui Eriksson, and Jimmy Hayes the scorers. Last year Holtby shut out the Bruins in all three games in which he faced them, and it has been almost two years (March 6, 2014) since he lost a game against the Bruins.
Next: Big Tests Ahead for New Bruins Lineup
So while it was all well and good to get a home win the other night, the cream of the crop is on tap next, and this is the line-up that the Bruins are going forward with, for better or worse.