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Bruins vs. Wild 4/4/19 PREVIEW: A game in which nobody will care about the score

Getting in one last western conference game in is nice but you probably won’t care about that.

By SkyonAir
NHL: Minnesota Wild at Boston Bruins Greg M. Cooper-USA TODAY Sports

Just The Facts:

The Time: 8pm EST

The Place: Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul, Minnesota

The Stakes: While 2 points and keeping position on Tronna is nice, the reality of this game comes down to two people and their performance: Zach Senyshyn, making his NHL debut after four years in Junior/AHL, and Ryan Donato, who has ascended all the way to the Minnesota Wild’s first LW spot.

Place to Watch: NESN, Sportsnet 360, FOX Sports North and FOX Sports Wisconsin

Place to Listen: 98.5 The Sports Hub, KFAN 100.3

Know Your Enemy:

  • Zach Parise is your leading goalscorer, leader in power-play goals, and point-getter for the Wild, as he has 28 goals (10 on the man-advantage), and 61 points in 74 games.
  • Ryan Suter is your lead assist-getter for Minnesota with 40 in 80 games.
  • Ryan Donato has 16 points in 20 games for the Wild. Because of this, he has been promoted to first line left-wing. Ha ha ha...aaah....
  • Devan Dubnyk is your starter for the opponent. He has a .913 SV% in 67 starts, with 31 wins.

Game Preview:

This penultimate game for the Bruins is...a weird one. Because ultimately there is almost nothing to gain except a pair of extra points and a win in never having to be in the Xcel Center for the rest of the season, as the B’s are already clinched and the Wild are probably not going to the playoffs.

...But that of course, is not the storyline. The storyline of tonight’s game, is now twofold.

Ryan Donato, post-trade, has had a pretty solid time in Minnesota, getting slowly promoted up the chain until he’s finally taking top line minutes. To say that the B’s kinda whiffed on that a bit might be an accurate statement, though given how miserable the Wild have been, it wouldn’t be hard to see that by merely doing things would get you promoted. But still! His performance would now become the focal point of this game in comparison to his old team....

And that was before Zach Senyshyn got called up!

So yeah, tonight’s game will be fun. Everyone will be concerned with a grand-total two, maybe three players if you’d like Karson Kuhlman to solidify himself in the lineup, and we will all spend the entire game discussing that.

Should be pretty fun!