Morning Skate: Match

Happy Friday, folks!

Believe it or not, we have reached the second-last Friday in March — April is right around the corner, and we all know that April means playoffs.

While it wasn’t quite a playoff atmosphere, last night’s Bruins win over Montreal did have a little of the extra juice that comes with the Habs being in town.

It got a little more of a jolt when AJ Greer got tossed for a silly crosscheck to Mike Hoffman’s teeth, but the fact remains that these aren't exactly the Milan Lucic-Mike Komisarek days of the rivalry.

Still, a win is a win, and last night’s was the Bruins’ fifth in a row.

There were also two entertaining subplots to the end of last night’s game:

• Brad Marchand passing up an easy empty-netter to try to get David Pastrnak his 50th goal
• Jeremy Swayman doing his best Linus Ullmark impression, twice going for the goalie goal

You have to think Swayman will get a few more cracks at it before the season ends. That’s probably quite a bragging rights battle in the locker room.

There are two good tests on tap for the B’s, who will host Tampa on Saturday before traveling to Carolina on Sunday.

This is the second time this season the B’s will face Carolina in Carolina on the second night of a back-to-back. Hopefully it goes better than last time.

What’s on tap for today?