The second half begins!
Just the facts
When: Tonight, 7:00 PM
Where: TD Garden — Boston, Mass.
How to follow: NESN, 98.5 The Sports Hub
Opposing perspective: Matchsticks & Gasoline
Know your enemy
- 22-22-5, 49PTS, 6th in Pacific Division
- Blake Coleman: 20G-20A-40PTS; Nazem Kadri: 16G-23A-39PTS
- Jacob Markstrom: 14-13-2, 2.60 GAA, .912 save percentage; Dan Vladar: 7-7-2, 327 GAA, .888 save percentage
Game notes
- The second half of the season is on! The Boston Bruins are already 49 games in as they welcome the Calgary Flames to town tonight.
- Get ready for a lot of Boston hockey as the game kicks off a seven-game homestand for the Bruins. And — make that a lot of Western Conference match-ups. Five of the seven games are against the West. The other two? The Capitals and Lightning.
- On the other hand, tonight starts a four-game road trip for the Flames. The B’s will have home on their side, only dropping four games in regulation and three in OT at the Garden with a 16-4-3 record. The Flames have a harder time on the road as they are 10-11-4 this season.
- It’s the first meeting between the two this season. They’ll close out their season series on Feb. 22.
- Matt Poitras, Jake DeBrusk and Derek Forbort were all skating this week ahead of the game. It sounds like there DeBrusk and Forbort are looking better for tonight than Poitras coming back.
- According to WEEI’s Scott McLaughlin, Brad Marchand, Charlie Coyle and Jake DeBrusk were skating together while Pavel Zacha centered James van Riemsdyk and David Pastrnak. Morgan Geekie had Jakub Lauko and Trent Frederic on the wings while Danton Heinen, Jesper Boqvist and Oscar Steen rounded out the fourth line. On defense, pairings looked the same while Forbort paired with Kevin Shattenkirk on the bottom pairing and Parker Wotherspoon as the odd-d out.
- Fresh off the All-Star break, Pastrnak looks to get back to where he left off in the points department. He had eight points in his last five games. Five of those points were in the last two games.
- Although he was pointless in the last game before the All-Star break, Marchand had five goals in his last five games.
- The Flames are 1-4-0 in their last five games, picking up a 1-0 win on Jan. 27 against the Chiago Blackhawks. For the Flames, Yegor Sharangovich has four points and MacKenzie Weeger has three goals in his last four games.
See ya tonight!