No rest for the victors!
Just the facts
When: Tonight, 8 PM
Where: Amerant Bank Arena – Sunrise, FL
How to follow: ESPN, 98.5 The Sports Hub
Opposing perspective: Litter Box Cats
Know your enemy
- 4-1-0, defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning in Round 1
- Carter Verhaeghe: 5G-4A-9PTS; Matthew Tkachuk: 3G-6A-9PTS; Aleksandr Barkov: 2G-3A-5PTS
- Sergei Bobrovsky: 4-1-0, 2.78 GAA, .896 save percentage
Game notes
- Did you spend all of Sunday re-watching David Pastrnak’s OT winner? There’s no shame in that, but it’s time to shake off the cobwebs — less than 48 hours after Round 1 ended, the Bruins begin Round 2 in Florida.
- You’re all well aware of what’s been going on lately with the Bruins, so I’ll spare some pixels. The most notable bit of news from Sunday was that the B’s anticipate having Andrew Peeke and Danton Heinen available at some point in this round. It remains to be seen when each will be ready, but if Sweeney is to be taken at his word, each is less than a week away.
- The B’s recalled Patrick Brown from Providence on an emergency basis on Sunday. It’s hard to say who among the forward corps could be too injured to play, but I guess we’ll find out (or hopefully not, and Brown is up on a “just in case” basis).
- The Panthers delivered a gentleman’s sweep in Round 1, beating Tampa in five games. The first two games of that series were 3-2 Panthers wins, with the second coming in OT. Tampa avoided a sweep in Game 4, but then got trucked in Game 5, 6-1.
- Sergei Bobrvosky made some outstanding saves against Tampa in Round 1, but he wasn’t at his best, as the stats above indicate. Given the play of Jeremy Swayman in Round 1, the B’s conceivably have the advantage in net in this series; however, that was also supposed to be the case last year, so who knows?
- The Panthers have the league’s third-most productive offense in these playoffs at 4 G/GP, while their team defense (2.80 GA/G) is a more mediocre 10th. The Bruins have allowed the fewest goals per game in the playoffs (1.71).
- We all saw last spring that the regular season means very little, but just for the sake of saying it: the Bruins were 3-0 against Florida this season, with two of those wins coming in OT (the most recent being Jesper Boqvist’s OT winner on April 6).
- The first of those OT wins, back on October 30, featured a Pavel Zacha winner and the Jack Edwards line “THROW THE CAT OFF THE CLIFF.” I miss Jack already.
- I could write several more bullets on storylines, last year, revenge, etc. but you’re all well aware of where things stand. Instead, I’ll leave it with long live the Boston Bruins and see ya tonight!