Horizon League Finals: Can the Vikings Overcome Their Bugaboo?
March 10, 2009Having trouble finding the Cavs?
March 10, 2009Boston Bruins (43-15-9, 95pts) vs.
Columbus Blue Jackets (33-27-6, 72pts)
Nationwide Arena, Columbus OH
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
7:00 PM EDT
FSOHIO/WWCD(fm)/WBNS(am)
(Dispatch Preview / SportsDirect Preview)
The Jackets finally got a day off, and are still (hopefully) riding the wave of their record-setting victory over Detroit on Saturday night. They’d better be, as the front-runner for the President’s Trophy (most points overall) comes to Nationwide tonight. After starting out 5-3-3, the Boston Bruins then went on a 34-5-3 tear to rise to the top of the Eastern Conference and NHL standings. They are second in the league (Detroit) in offense, lead the league in defense, and are solid on special teams as well. Boston has one of the only goalies who can make a better case for the Vezina trophy in Tim Thomas (2.08 GAA, .932 SV%, 4 SO). In other words, this one is a tough one. We know, however, that the Jackets tend to play to the level of their competition, especially on home ice (San Jose and Detroit, anyone?). They’re going to have to tonight.
Projected Lineups
Boston Bruins:
LW: | Milan Lucic | Blake Wheeler | Mark Recchi | P.J. Axelsson |
C: | Marc Savard | David Krejci | Patrice Bergeron | Byron Bitz |
RW: | Phil Kessel | Michael Ryder | Chuck Kobasew | Shawn Thornton |
D: | Zdeno Chara | Andrew Ference | Aaron Ward | |
D: | Dennis Wideman | Mark Stuart | Shane Hnidy | |
G: | Tim Thomas |
Columbus Blue Jackets:
LW: | Kristian Huselius | R.J. Umberger | Raffi Torres | Andrew Murray |
C: | Manny Malhotra | Antoine Vermette | Jiri Novotny | Chris Gratton |
RW: | Rick Nash | Jason Williams | Jakub Voracek | Jared Boll |
D: | Jan Hejda | Fedor Tyutin | Kris Russell | |
D: | Mike Commodore | Rostislav Klesla | Marc Methot | |
G: | Steve Mason |
Team Rankings
Scoring:
BOS – 3.31 gpg (2nd NHL)
CBJ – 2.71 gpg (20th NHL)
Defense:
BOS – 2.22 gapg (1st NHL)
CBJ – 2.74 gapg (11th NHL)
Power Play:
BOS – 22.7% (4th NHL)
CBJ – 12.8% (30th NHL)
Penalty Kill:
BOS – 82.0% (12th NHL)
CBJ – 81.6% (14th NHL)
Prior Matchups
No prior matchups. This is the only matchup of the season between these two teams.
Who To Root For
Thanks to the great people at Sports Club Stats, we can also look at what the rest of the league is doing, and who (as Jackets fans) we need to root for tonight to help them make the playoffs:
Boston at Columbus
Edmonton at Montreal
Washington at Nashville
San Jose at Minnesota
Dallas at St. Louis
Game Notes
Looking at the numbers, the outlook is bleak. The only solace the Jackets can take is that Boston is only 4-7-3 since February 5th. The Jackets are 5-1-1 at home in that same span. After a tough couple of weeks with five roads games out of six, the Jackets finally got an extra day off between games, and have four of their next five at home. Granted, those four are all against current playoff teams from both conferences, but hey… you take what you can get. Better at home than on the road. Columbus is also 10-3-1 on the year against the Eastern Conference, and Steve Mason has five of his eight shutouts against Eastern foes as well.
On offense, the Bruins have been solid all season, and recently added veteran Mark Recchi at the trading deadline. The Bruins have 10 players over 30 points on the year (11 if you count Recchi’s totals from Tampa Bay, where he had 45 points before being traded). By comparison, the Jackets have seven players with 30 or more points on the year. Where the Jackets make up a bit is in the area of depth, which is a strength for both clubs. Boston has 20 players (including Recchi and defenseman Steve Montador who came over from Anaheim recently as well) with double-digit point totals on the year. The Jackets have 19, using the same set of inclusions (trades and injuries). The biggest advantage Boston has is on special teams, where their Power Play has been a weapon all season. As we have well-documented, the Jackets’ PP unit has been a constant struggle all season.
On defense, Boston and Columbus are very similar. Both have a solid backend in goal (Tim Thomas and Steve Mason), and both commit to playing solid defense. The Jackets will need to bring the effort they had against Detroit on Saturday night to continue their quest for the playoffs tonight. They had a great forecheck, and they used it to force several costly turnovers by the Wings. The special bonus was that they capitalized off of those Wings’ mistakes unlike any other time I’ve seen since the inception of this team. All three of Nash’s goals were unassisted, as all three came directly from turnovers and/or break-aways. Boston is much more solid on the back-end than is Detroit, so Columbus will have to work just as hard to probably generate half the amount of scoring chances. In other words, if they don’t work *as* hard, they will be in for a long night.
Steve Mason played his best game in arguably five or six weeks on Saturday, stopping 44 shots from Detroit’s league-leading offense. He, too, will have to be just as good tonight, as there isn’t a ton of drop-off from Detroit to Boston; the Bruins are second in goals-per-game behind only Detroit, and fourth in PP%. Mason made some flat-out sick saves against Detroit, showing a focus and energy level that just hasn’t been there so consistently since the whole mono-diagnosis thing. Given that he’s matching up against one of maybe the two or three goalies in the entire league that are having better years than him, here’s hoping Mase rises to the occasion once again.
The Jackets have been feast-or-famine of late, including on special teams. They were 1-2 on the PP Saturday, and 6-6 on the PK against the league’s #1 PP unit. Let’s hope that “feast” trend continues tonight. One of our constant talking points all season is that Columbus tends to play better when they stay out of the box, and despite the 100% PK ratio on Saturday they did take six penalties, which is too many when you’re dealing with such a dangerous PP unit on the other side.
Boston has struggled of late, as we noted, going 4-7-3 in their last 14 games. Hopefully that means Columbus is catching them at just the right time. Columbus needs to come back with their “San Jose/Detroit” effort tonight if they hope to snag two more points and start a tough homestand off on the right foot. The Jackets are without Michael Peca and Fredrik Modin on offense again tonight, so hopefully they didn’t waste all of their goals in Detroit.
Side game notes:
- Newest Jacket Antoine Vermette has had decent career success against Boston, with 10 goals, 6 assists, and a +2 rating against them in 29 career games. Vermette has some of the most experience against the Bruins of anyone on the roster not named Michael Peca (out of the lineup tonight).
- Rick Nash has been hot of late, with 5G and 2A in his last four games. Nash was named the NHL’s Third Star of the week last week, and will need to continue the hot streak against the staunch Bruins.
- Solid game preview over at Light the Lamp as well. “Another game.. another test.. another biggest game in the history of the Blue Jackets.”
From The Outside Looking In
According to Cameron Frye
The Boston Globe
The Bear Essentials
Ghosts of the Garden
The Bruins Report
Next Game For The Jackets
Thursday, March 12, 2009
7:00 PM EDT
Pittsburgh Penguins at Columbus Blue Jackets
8 Comments
Outside looking in: May be worth adding that Cameron Frye mumbles about the Bruins – [CameronFrye.com]
So done.
I went to confession today and was told to say 3 Hail Mary’s…….becuase of this, Jackets win 3-2.
Do the Cavs still play in Cleveland? Where’s the Cavs coverage today boys?
BLESS THE MOTHER MARY!!!!!!
WOOOOOOOOOO!!
All do respect, Han, but Rock has spent the last day and a half trying to fix our site, so you’ll forgive him that he wasn’t able to get a Cavs preview done. 🙂
[…] Wow wow wow. What a game! In the preview, I wrote: “The only solace the Jackets can take is that Boston is only 4-7-3 since February […]