Preview: A best-of-three series begins as the Bruins return home for Game 5

Just the facts

When: Tonight, 7:15 PM

Where: TD Garden - Boston, MA

How to follow: NBC, CBC, 98.5 The Sports Hub

Rival SBN site: Jackets Cannon

Know your enemy

• Points: Artemi Panarin, 10
• Goals: Panarain/Matt Duchene, 5
• Assists: Seth Jones, 6

Game notes

• DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SCREEN. Yes, that is a 7:15 PM start time you’re seeing. It’s weird, it’s wonderful, and it’s all because of the Kentucky Derby, which will be airing on NBC right before this game starts. Not a bad sports evening, folks.
• We’re right back where we found ourselves in the first round: the Bruins return home for Game 5 after a huge win on the road in Game 4. Last series, they came out relatively flat and got beaten by Toronto. Maybe...don’t do that this time.
• Last game was the game where tensions started to boil over. Josh Anderson and Pierre-Luc Dubois, among other Blue Jackets, seem determined to either a) injure someone or b) goad the Bruins into a dumb penalty. Dubois in particular looks like he’s about to do something dumb.
• A lot has been made about Columbus playing a HEAVY GAME, but there’s a flip side to that: they’ve been leaning pretty heavily on a few guys of their own. Columbus’ defensemen drop off significantly after their top pairing, and Seth Jones and Zach Werenski are absorbing a ton of the workload. Jones’ ice time in this series: 28, 38, 27 30; Werenski’s: 29, 33, 23, 26.
• The pressure was off, but the Bruins’ last power play of Game 4 looked a lot better than their mid-game attempts. I read somewhere (can’t find it) that David Krejci was at the point on the PP at practice, so David Pastrnak may no longer be on blue line duty. Matt Grzelcyk looked OK manning one point late too. At this point, they may as well mix it up, because the status quo has been terrifying at times.
• No official word yet, but it’s reasonably safe to assume that the Bruins’ lines will be the same for Game 5. I can’t see Bruce Cassidy taking David Backes out after a solid team win, assuming he’s not dealing with any lingering effects of that Dean Kukan elbow.
• We’re heading into Game 5, and we’re still waiting for that Brad Marchand breakthrough. He simply wasn’t good in Game 4, and has been among the more frustrated Bruins players all series long. The team bailed him out for his errors on Thursday night; here’s the hoping he gets moving in the right direction tonight.
• With a Game 6 now a guarantee, the league announced on Friday that the game will start at 7 PM in Columbus.
• The Garden crowd was awesome during Game 1, but received mixed (and negative) reviews during Game 2 for being a bit more subdued. Something tells me the fans will be ready to go tonight.

See ya at 7:15!