On Thursday night, Zdeno Chara will have his No. 33 raised to the rafters at the TD Garden. After that, just after 8 p.m., the Boston Bruins will look to close out their five-game homestand with a fifth straight win when they play the Seattle Kraken.
The Bruins owe the Kraken one after they closed out their five-game road trip with a disappointing 7-4 loss in Seattle last Tuesday night. It was an effort that irked much of the Black and Gold's locker room. Rarely nowadays does a team get a chance to exact some revenge just nine days later.
This has been a dominating homestand, to say the least, for Boston. They have won their last two games by shutouts over the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings. Joonas Korpisalo recorded the shutout against Pittsburgh, and Jeremy Swayman shut out Detroit. It was the first two clean sheets of the season for the Bruins. As Marco Sturm's team looks for a fifth straight win, he announced who would be starting between the pipes, and it wasn't surprising.
Bruins will start Jeremy Swayman against Kraken
After alternating shutouts, it would have made sense for Sturm to go back to Korpisalo, but instead, he announced that Swayman will get the start and look for some revenge after his outing in Seattle last week.
This is another game where the Bruins need to take advantage of their opponent playing the night before. It backfired last week in Seattle when the Kraken beat them after playing the Calgary Flames the night before on the road and the Black and Gold had three days off.
Seattle played in New Jersey on Wednesday night and lost 3-2 in overtime. The same situation happened on Tuesday night when the Bruins faced a Red Wings team that played the night before at home and beat the Carolina Hurricanes, 4-3, in overtime.