Preview: Bruins face league-best Panthers as season winds down

Just the facts

When: Tonight, 7:00 PM

Where: TD Garden – Boston, MA

How to follow: NESN, SN360, 98.5 The Sports Hub

Rival SBN site: Litter Box Cats

Know your enemy

• 57-16-6, 120PTS, 1st in Atlantic Division and 1^st clinched in Eastern Conference
• Jonathan Huberdeau: 79GP, 30G, 85A, 115PTS; Aleksander Barkov: 66GP, 39G, 49A, 88PTS; Sam Reinhart: 76GP, 31G, 48A, 79PTS
• Sergei Bobrovsky: 39-6-3, 2.66 GAA, .912 save percentage; Spencer Knight: 18-9-3, 2.89 GAA, .905 save percentage

Game notes

• The Boston Bruins host the Florida Panthers tonight at the TD Garden to cap off another season-series as the regular season inches closer to its conclusion.
• The Bruins haven’t seen the Panthers since October. The Bruins are 1-1-0 against Florida this season, losing 4-1 to them on October 27, 2021 and edging the Panthers out 3-2 in a shootout win on October 30, 2021.
• Anthony Duclair scored a goal in each of those games against the Bruins while Aaron Ekblad and Gustav Forsling each had three assists in the meetings. For the Bruins, Charlie Coyle had a goal in both games and Taylor Hall had two points against the Panthers.
• The Bruins could start resting some guys tonight, with the heavy five games in seven days schedule to end the season. David Pastrnak and Hampus Lindholm sat out against the Montreal Canadiens and we’re likely to see some other key players take a breather this week with playoffs around the corner.
• Playoff positioning is still not 100% set although it’s more than probable the Bruins will finish in the first wild-card spot. The Bruins are three points ahead of the Washington Capitals in the wild card and three points behind the Tampa Bay Lightning for 3^rd in the division.
• The Bruins enter tonight’s game coming off a big two-game swing this weekend. Bergeron broke a five-game pointless streak in the Bruins’ 5-3 win over the Canadiens on Sunday. In the win, Bergeron registered two goals and an assist. Erik Haula also picked up two goals in the win and Charlie McAvoy added the other. Haula, McAvoy and Brad Marchand are now on two-game point streaks after the weekend’s games.
• While they collected four points this past weekend, the B’s have still come up short on the power play and STILL looking for their first power-play goal since April 2. At this point, it would just be nice to get ONE on the man-advantage before the season wraps up.
• The Panthers were on a thirteen-game win streak until Sunday when the Lightning defeated them, 8-4. That streak included three overtime wins and one shutout. They scored four or more goals in 10 of those games and lead the league with an average 4.17 GF/GP.
• For Florida, Huberdeau has seven assists to put him on a four-game point streaks. He has the second most points in the NHL at 115 (just three points behind Connor McDavid). Barkov has five goals and three assists in his last five games.

See ya tonight!