Just the Facts:
Game Time: 7:30 PM, Joe Lewis Arena. TV Broadcast: NESN, NBCSN, TSN2. Radio Broadcast: 98.5 The Sports Hub
Rival SB Nation Site: Winging it in Motown.
Series Record: Bruins 1-1 vs Red Wings 1-1
Wings Lines:
Johan Franzen | Pavel Datsyuk | Justin Abdelkader |
Tomas Jurco | Darren Helm | Daniel Alfredsson |
Gustav Nyquist | Riley Sheahan | Tomas Tatar |
Drew Miller | David Legwand | Luke Glendening |
Niklas Kronwall | Brendan Smith |
Kyle Quincey | Danny DeKeyser |
Brian Lashoff | Jakub Kindl |
Jimmy Howard (starting) |
Jonas Gustavsson |
Bruins Lines:
Milan Lucic | David Krejci | Jarome Iginla |
Brad Marchand | Patrice Bergeron | Reilly Smith |
Justin Florek | Carl Soderberg | Loui Eriksson |
Jordan Caron | Gregory Campbell | Shawn Thornton |
Zdeno Chara | Dougie Hamilton |
Johnny Boychuk | Matt Bartkowski |
Torey Krug | Kevan Miller |
Tuukka Rask (starting) |
Hi I'm Chad Johnson |
Game Notes:
- According to the Bruins' twitter account, the team finally seems to be getting over whatever flu bug ran rampant in the room. Hopefully that means we see more Chris Kelly and less Jordan Caron soon.
- The team held only an optional skate yesterday, and while Adam McQuaid and Dennis Seidenberg skated with the team for moral support, we still don't expect to see them back anytime soon.
- The Bruins' work on special teams will need to continue in game 3 and really, for the rest of the series. They allowed very few shots on the numerous penalties they had to kill during game 2, and managed two PPGs to make it 4-1. Long gone are the Bruins who were never able to score on the power play and what a welcome change that is.
- The Bruins haven't won at the Joe since March 2007 and that's ridiculous.
- No morning skate updates yet today, but Fluto's on the food beat, and that's always okay:
Legit BBQ at Slow's. Killer brisket. Off to a good start. pic.twitter.com/2Hk0bACSUp
— Fluto Shinzawa (@GlobeFluto) April 22, 2014 - And Amalie Benjamin was on the bike beat yesterday:
I can assure you that Patrice Bergeron and @ToreyKrug are in the building. Neither rode a bike through the media area like Tuukka, though.
— Amalie Benjamin (@AmalieBenjamin) April 21, 2014
NEVER FORGET:
Brendan isn't the intelligent Smith brother, is he.
Extra Skater Stats Preview
Link coming soon
Player Usage Charts, playoffs to date
So many Bruins still in the red. Hopefully as the playoffs progress this will shift, but the Bruins are still getting killed by the Nyquist line. We knew that'd be the case coming in, but it's painfully obvious here. Great to see Florek in the blue here, but his zone starts are so sheltered - even Caron was under 50% o-zone starts the first two games. Against terrible competition, yes, but who's counting?
Again, that Nyquist-Sheahan-Tatar line is taking a ton of o-zone starts against the Bruins' best players, and they're capitalizing on it. Kronwall and Smith are doing the same, but in the defensive zone, and their numbers are only slightly worse than the Nyquist line's. The Bruins have some work to do.