Bruins vs Wild Preview: Born to Beat Wild

Just the Facts:

Game Time: 7:00 PM, TD Garden.

TV Broadcast: NBCSN, NESN.

Radio Broadcast: 98.5 The Sports Hub

Rival SB Nation Site:  Hockey Wilderness

Season Record: Bruins: 5-5-0, 4th in Atlantic Division | Wild 4-3-0, 4th in Central Division

Wild Lines:

Zach Parise - Mikael Granlund - Jason Pominville

Thomas Vanek - Mikko Koivu - Charlie Coyle

Nino Niederreiter - Erik Haula - Justin Fontaine

Matt Cooke - Ryan Carter - Jason Zucker

Defense:

Jonas Brodin - Ryan Suter

Jared Spurgeon - Marco Scandella

Nate Prosser - Mathew Dumba

Goalies: Darcy Kuemper, Niklas Backstrom

IR: Josh Harding, Christian Folin, Keith Ballard

Bruins Lines:

Milan Lucic - David Krejci - Seth Griffith

Brad Marchand - Patrice Bergeron - Reilly Smith

Chris Kelly - Carl Soderberg - Loui Eriksson

Daniel Paille - Gregory Campbell - Simon Gagne

Defense:

Dennis Seidenberg - Dougie Hamilton

Torey Krug - Adam McQuaid

Matt Bartkowski - Zach Trotman

Goalies: Tuukka Rask, Niklas Svedberg

IR: Zdeno Chara, Kevan Miller

Game Notes:

• Listen, people seem way too shocked that Bruins defense can thrive without Chara. These weeks certainly won't be a breeze, but the Boston Bruins are not the kind of team to rely on one star. Players rose up to the challenge Saturday. Dougie Hamilton is developing confidence and finding his game. It's beautiful. Torey Krug said the Bruins are using the temporary loss of Big Z as an "exciting challenge" and this is the attitude everyone should have. McQuaid has been surprisingly solid. Maybe we should flash a Bat-Signal throughout the city of Boston saying "Don't Panic in October."
• The Wild have only played 7 games so far this season. They beat (tired,injured) Lightening 7-2, but they fell to the Rangers 5-4 in a comeback thriller last night.  Wild goalie Darcy Kuemper has had three impressive shutouts in this young season but the way he blew the game last night was equally impressive. If Kuemper shows up, sloppy Bruins offense will just not be acceptable.
• Boston played a full 60 minutes of hockey against Toronto. It's encouraging to see that they are, in fact, capable of doing that. Now that they've proved they're more than a third period team, they need to keep it up.

NEVER FORGET:

A Smith goal would be ideal tonight.

Last Game in Fancy Stats:

Well, this is fun.