Bruins back in Boston to take on Panthers

by Stanley Cup of Chowder on Jan 26, 2011 9:00 AM EST in Game Previews

The Bruins are back in town to play host to the Florida Panthers at TD Garden tonight after a quick two-game road trip out West. The Bruins cap of the brief business trip with a 2-0 loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Monday night. The Panthers will be playing back-to-back games after edging out the New York Rangers 4-3 on Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden despite a lackluster third period that saw them only register one shot on goal (a fluky chip shot by Mike Weaver that was mishandled by Henrik Ludqvist that ended up in the back of the net for the game winner).

Florida currently sits in last place in the Southeast Division with a 22-21-5 record. Panthers fans will tell you that they are above .500, but last time I checked 22 wins and 26 losses is still below .500.

Panthers Player to Watch

	G	A	P	+/-	PIM
David Booth	14	12	26	-8	14

Booth leads the Panthers in goals with 14. His 26 points rank third behind Stephen Weiss (33) and Mike Santorelli (27) for the team lead in points.

Panthers Goaltending

	GP	MIN	W	L	EGA	GA	GAA	SA	SV	SV%	SO
Tomas Vokoun	36	2017	17	15		85	2.53	1094	1009	.922	5

	GP	MIN	W	L	EGA	GA	GAA	SA	SV	SV%	SO
2010 - Scott Clemmensen	16	839	5	5		34	2.43	431	397	.921	0

Tuesday's game against the Rangers was Tomas Vokoun's first game back after missing Sunday's game at New Jersey with a groin injury. I would expect to see Scott Clemmensen between the pipes tonight for the Panthers.

Injury Report

Boston Bruins Injuries

Out (IR / Out / Suspended / Physically unvailable)

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Marc Savard	concussion	01/23/2011

Florida Panthers Injuries

Probable

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Tomas Vokoun	groin	01/25/2011
Dmitry Kulikov	ribs	01/25/2011

Out (IR / Out / Suspended / Physically unvailable)

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Byron Bitz	sports-hernia	10/05/2010
Bryan McCabe	jaw	01/16/2011

Notes:

- This is the Panthers's third stop on a six game road trip.

- The Bruins and Panthers have met three times this season. The B's have won all three contests (twice in regulation and once in a shootout).

- The Bruins have a rare Wednesday night home game. The Bruins have not played a Wednesday home game since December of 2009, when they oddly played three in the same month.

- Florida has struggled on the power play this season. Their 11.4% success rate is last in the NHL. That is a 88.6% failure rate, in case you are the glass half-empty type.

- The puck drops around 7:00 PM ET (NESN, 98.5 The Sports Hub).

- The Public Skate open thread gets crackin' at 6:30 PM ET.

- To see what Donny and his crew are saying about this game down in FLA, check out Litter Box Cats.

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Bitz is still out?!

by MattS on Jan 26, 2011 11:18 AM EST reply actions

This is from last month, but:

Byron Bitz has been back on the ice the past few days, working out after his teammates finished practice. Bitz, who has played in just seven games since being acquired by the Panthers last March, has been out since training camp. Bitz had sports-hernia surgery a few weeks into the season.
``This has definitely been a lot longer than anyone thought,‘’ Bitz said. ``I went to the doctor, and he worked on it a little bit. Hopefully within a week we’ll see how it’s helped. Everything wasn’t fitting right. Hopefully this works. I was skating, then I had a setback. It was the same process for a couple of weeks. I was actually going backward.’’

From: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/12/31/1994639/weiss-regains-his-scoring-touch.html

I don’t think they miss him that much, either.

Hockey Blog Adventure: New Post: Year in Review: Your 2010 Boston Bruins. The Good, the Bad, the Loss to Philly (I'm also on Twitter.) GO BRUINS! (and Wild!)

by Cornelius Hardenbergh on Jan 26, 2011 1:24 PM EST up reply actions