With a win or overtime loss tonight, the Boston Bruins will win the season series over the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Yes, it's December 3rd.
With a win or an overtime loss, the Bruins will also extend their points streak to 14 games. That's impressive, but it's nothing when compared to the Philadelphia Flyers in 1979-80, who notched at least a point in 35 games.
That Flyers team lost in six games to their division rival New York Islanders in the Stanley Cup Finals. What fate has in store for this Bruins team remains to be seen, but the Bruins aren't worried about that right now.
The Bruins 13-game point streak hasn't been because of any one player or any one line. With the exception of Tim Thomas, who's been playing at a higher level in November than he did in either of his Vezina Trophy-winning seasons, no one performance has stood out over the past month, in which the Bruins outscored their opposition, 59-25 (that's 4.5 - 1.9 per game, if you're scoring at home).
At times, it's been Chris Kelly's line coming up with shifts and goals in clutch spots. At times, it's been the David Krejci line wearing down opposing defenses. At times, it's been Zdeno Chara and Johnny Boychuk coming up with big plays and shutting down top lines.
Without fail, it's been Patrice Bergeron, Tyler Seguin and Brad Marchand taking other teams to task, out-skating, out-working and out-performing their opposition.
The Bruins will need all of them and more to come up big against Toronto tonight, as the Leafs will no doubt be hungry to tag the Black and Gold with their first regulation loss in 35 days.
Of note in this one, former Bruins prospect Joe Colborne may be playing his first regular season game at TD Garden after facing the B's for the first time in his career in Wednesday's 6-3 Toronto loss. Also worth noting is this tweet, which indicates that James Reimer will return from missing nearly a month with a concussion to stand between the pipes for Toronto tonight.
Here's what the lineup should look like: