Two of the NHL’s best will battle it out tonight!
Just the facts
When: Tonight, 7:00 PM
Where: TD Garden — Boston, Mass.
How to follow: NESN, 98.5 The Sports Hub
Opposing perspective: Arctic Ice Hockey
Know your enemy
- 30-10-4, 64PTS, 1st in Central Division
- Mark Scheifele: 14G-27A-41PTS; Nikolaj Ehlers: 18G-18A-34PTS; Josh Morrissey: 7G-26A-33PTS
- Connor Hellebuyck: 23-7-3, 2.15 GAA, .927 save percentage; Laurent Brossoit: 7-3-1, 2.18 GAA, .923 save percentage
Game notes
- It’s a match-up of two of the NHL’s best teams tonight as the Boston Bruins face the Winnipeg Jets.
- The Bruins are at the top of the Atlantic Division and Eastern Conference while the Jets sit atop the Central Division and second in the Western Conference. Breaking down the conferences at this point in the season — the Bruins have seven points over the Florida Panthers and New York Rangers. Out West it’s a tight conference race, as one point separates the Vancouver Canucks, Jets and Colorado Avalanche. In their division, the Jets are just one point ahead of Colorado.
- Tonight will be the last time these two teams see each other this season. The Bruins didn’t fair well when they saw the Jets on Dec. 22, dropping the game, 5-1. The Jets led 4-0 by the opening shifts of the third period before Brandon Carlo make it 4-1 later in the frame. Nino Niederreiter scored two power play goals, including the one that made the final score 5-1 Jets.
- The Bruins are now on a four-game win streak and eight-game point streak. The Jets only have one loss this month out of nine games played in January.
- The B’s got some bodies back from injury last game with some performing better than others. Hopefully we’ll see Derek Forbort return to form sooner than later as he was definitely a bit rusty out there.
- While the Jets have one of the best records, head-to-head on special teams, the Bruins should have the advantage over them on both the power play and penalty kill. Winnipeg’s power play is just at 16.7% to the Bruins’ 27.3%
- The two are tighter when it comes to goals they’ve scored and allowed. The Bruins score slightly more goals on average at 3.47 to the Jets’ 3.30 goals. The Bruins goals assist average is 2.64 while the Jets allow the least right now in the NHL at 2.25.
- Nine goals were scored in the Bruins last game, with 16 players registering at least a goal and Danton Heinen getting his first career hat trick to boost that goals for average. It doesn’t happen often as the last time they put up that many goals was back in 2012. Before that? 1998.
- It could be Hellebuyck and Swayman between the pipes and if that’s the case, the chances are likely we won’t see another nine-goal outing. Both goaltenders are league leaders in least amount of goals allowed per game. But that’s also not to say there won’t be high-scoring. Last time the two saw each other Swayman allowed five goals.
- See ya tonight!