News Bruins Team Notes

[Boston Bruins]

Preview: Bruins begin road trip in Las Vegas

Just the facts​

• When: Tonight, 10 PM
• Where: T-Mobile Arena – Las Vegas, NV
• How to follow: NESN, 98.5 The Sports Hub
• Opposing perspective: Knights on Ice

Know your enemy​

• 2-0-2, 6PTS, 1st in the Pacific Division
• Jack Eichel: 4G-5A-9PTS; Mark Stone: 0G-6A-6PTS; Pavel Dorofeyev: 5G-0A-5PTS
• Akira Schmid: 2-0-0, 1.80 GAA, .929 save percentage

Game notes​

• After a couple of days off in sunny Nevada, the Bruins begin a three-game road trip tonight by visiting the Pacific-leading Golden Knights.
• Fresh off of an eight-year, $108-million contract extension, Jack Eichel is off to a flying start for Vegas. The future Bruin (hey, it could still happen) has a whopping nine points in just four games, including four goals.
• High-profile acquisition Mitch Marner hasn’t scored yet for Vegas, but does have four assists to his name.
• Similar to Eichel, it’s been a hot start for Vegas winger Pavel Dorofeyev, who has five goals in his team’s first four games. He had a career-best 35 goals and 52 points last season.
• Former Bruin Jeremy Lauzon landed with Vegas this summer after four seasons in Nashville.
• The first four games of this season for Vegas have all featured some kind of intrigue or excitement. Their season-opener was a 6-5 shootout loss, followed by back-to-back OT games (one win, one loss). Vegas finally won a regulation game last time out, but that game saw them turn a 2-0 deficit into a 4-2 win.
• Goalie Adin Hill left that 4-2 win over Calgary with a lower-body injury. Massachusetts native Noah Hanifin has been injured since the season opener as well.
• For the Bruins, Hampus Lindholm traveled with the team and is questionable for tonight’s game. The Boston Globe guesses it may have been a hamstring injury for Lindholm, which is concerning, but better than something related to his knee injury from last year.

See ya tonight!

Source: https://www.stanleycupofchowder.com...7/preview-bruins-begin-road-trip-in-las-vegas

 

[Boston Bruins]

Preview/Public Skate: Tomorrow is a Latter Day

Just the Facts​

• The Time: 7pm EST
• The Place: Delta Center, Salt Lake City, Utah
• Place to Watch: NESN, NHL Network, Utah-16, TVAS, SportsNet 360, ESPN+
• Place to Listen: 98.5 The Sports Hub

Know Your Enemy​

• The Mammoth are 3-2-0, and are 4th in the Central Division; tied with the St. Louis Blues.
• Nick Schmaltz has once again taken up the mantle of points-getter on the Mammoth, though a recent trip to San Jose juiced that quite a bit. He’s got 7 points in 5 games and leads the team in scoring with 3 goals.
• Once again the Mammoth place their faith in Karel Vejmelka. He’s largely rewarded them so far, with a .912 SV% and a 3-1-0 record.

Game Preview​

I’ve been very interested in this Mammoth team for a minute now. Maybe not in a “adopted western team” way, but more like the way you watch an insect wander around an enclosure.

Last year, they were one of the most impactful teams at 5v5 and yet didn’t make the playoffs, and that has followed them into 2025-26. They are good at getting unblocked shots to the net, and arguably even better at creating quality shots for themselves. Are they perfect? Hell no; they do not attack the middle of the ice almost as a matter of principle at even strength, nearly the entirety of their defense pairings are hot dog water and early returns on their offseason suggest that JJ Peterka will remain the highlight, as just about everybody else they got has been kind of bad. But they’re just good enough in a weird Western Conference that I could see a couple of sell-offs early allowing them to cement their position as 1st wildcard team for a good long while. A lot of what I see here says they probably won’t make it…but part of me wonders if they could.

Meanwhile, Boston got as hard a wakeup call as anyone can give this team in the form of the Colorado Avalanche last night, and the less said about this, the better! What it proved is that while Marco Sturm has definitely figured out a way to get these guys to give a s#!t, this is still very much a work in progress roster construction and against good teams, you can feel the gulf in talent down in your bones. Look no further than a Mikey Eyssimont ending up in the top 6 by some trick of the mind. You can only bring up how your grinders were your best players so often when like 75% of your roster could qualify for that label.

Boston would like to finish up this little western road trip with their dignity intact, so hopefully they can just take a breath, bury the game tape from yesterday out in the salt flats, and move on to winning tonight.

We’ll see you there.

Source: https://www.stanleycupofchowder.com...preview-public-skate-tomorrow-is-a-latter-day

 

[Boston Bruins]

Preview/Public Skate: Bruins go a Mile High

Just the Facts:​

• The Time: 9pm EST
• The Place: Ball Arena, Denver, Colorado
• Place to Watch: NESN, Altitude Sports, KTVD if you’re local or have an antenna that can pop popcorn in the bag.
• Place to Listen: 98.5 The Sports Hub
• An Opposing Viewpoint: Mile High Hockey

Know Your Enemy​

• The Avs are 4-0-1 through 5 games, and are 1st in the Central Division
• Noted Trade target Martin Necas is either making it really tempting, or really hard to trade him, as he currently leads the Avs in points with 9 in 5 games.
• Nathan MacKinnon is present as per usual as the leading goalscorer for the Avalanche, with 4 in 5 games.
• The Avs have only ever used Scott Wedgewood in net this year so far, but his .939 SV% in 5 games suggests they aren’t worried about overworking him yet. Which is nuts, because Wedgewood has also seen the second most amount of shots against of any NHL goalie this season so far, at 131. All other players around him are on basement dwellers.

Game Preview​

So! That game against Vegas went pretty badly until it didn’t!

Boston is coming to Colorado’s barn to face a team that is quite interesting for the already high standards of Avs fans; some might even call them impossible. They are effectively undefeated in regulation, they routinely drop three or four goals on the competition and only surrender one in return, and are sitting pretty atop the NHL in this early part of the season, with very little indication that they will slow down. Unlike Florida, they haven’t suffered catastrophic injury to their most important players, and unlike Winnipeg, their play isn’t entirely tied to a goaltender remaining the best modern example of his position in the regular season, and instead in an organizational desire to attack the middle of the ice in the offensive zone like it’s their last charge. They’re even up in the top 5 of relevant possession metrics! Most people would refer to this as being in a “good position”.

But the Avs right now are a weird beast. At 5v5, they’re a juggernaut. On both sides of special teams on the other hand? They’ve been pretty ugly. Routinely boxed out of dangerous scoring chances on the man advantage to the point their power play has a worse success rate than Boston’s, and hoping that they can block shots in volume from the high slot on the man-disadvantage which has landed them down in the bottom third of the league in PK success, the Avs seem to be a squad of extremes. It is in those extremes that you can hope to beat them, but it will be a grind just to get there; Dallas is the sole team to beat them this year, and it required surviving a comeback, overtime, and then going the distance to the shootout to finally best them. This is still an extremely good team by all metrics, just a bit of a lopsided one.

If there’s anywhere Boston can take advantage, it’s through those special teams hiccups. Otherwise, they must skate like they’re being chased in order to keep up with the torrid pace of the Avalanche. Anything less and we could have another ugly start like we saw in Vegas.

How will they handle it? Let’s find out together!

The Avs also may wear their Nordiques gear tonight. I’m sure Jacques Perizeau’s half-frozen form in Cocytus has been turned to watch the game on behalf of all Quebecois who voted “remain”.

---

Sorry about this not going up on time, but it’s here now!

What’s on tap?

Source: https://www.stanleycupofchowder.com/bruins-gameday/56800/preview-public-skate-bruins-go-a-mile-high

 

[Boston Bruins]

Morning Skate: Zilch

Welcome to a new week, folks!

After a better-than-expected start to the season, I think we can all agree that the Bruins are now back to reality.

The B’s dropped a 3-2 decision to the Utah Mammoth last night in Salt Lake City, bringing an end to a fruitless road trip, with the Bruins losing all three games in regulation.

You could live with the Vegas game, as it was a pretty wild affair and the Bruins hung in there. You can also look at the Colorado game as the Bruins simply being outclassed by a far superior opponent.

But last night’s game was a frustrating one, as it was very much there for the taking.

If the Bruins come out of that game with two points, you don’t feel that bad about the mini road trip for the reasons stated above; instead, the B’s limp home with far more questions than when they headed out west.

Head coach Marco Sturm continues to tinker with his lineup, wielding the healthy scratch as a motivational tool and even benching his best player for half of a period.

The team remains a work in progress, so most of us are expecting more frustrating games to come as we learn what this group is really made of.

Looming on the schedule: the return of Brad Marchand, who will be back at TD Garden with the Florida Panthers on Tuesday night.

I feel like there’s no question about whether or not Marchand will get a warm reception, but I’m sure some talk radio pundit will try to make it an issue (or maybe not, because the Patriots might be good again).

That game with the Panthers is the first of a three-game homestand for the Bruins, who will welcome Anaheim on Thursday night before a matinée against Colorado on Saturday.

What’s on tap for today?

Source: https://www.stanleycupofchowder.com/morning-skate-open-threads/56813/morning-skate-zilch

 

[Boston Bruins]

Preview: A familiar face returns as Bruins host Panthers

Just the facts​

• When: Tonight, 7:30 PM
• Where: TD Garden – Boston, MA
• How to follow: ESPN, 98.5 The Sports Hub
• Opposing perspective: Litter Box Cats

Know your enemy​

• 3-4-0, 6PTS, T-4th in the Atlantic Division
• Brad Marchand: 3G-3A-6PTS; Anton Lundell: 2G-3A-5PTS; Evan Rodrigues: 2G-2A-4PTS
• Sergei Bobrovsky: 3-2-0, 2.02 GAA, .917 save percentage

Game notes​

• Brad Marchand is back! The longtime Bruin is returning for the first time since being traded last spring in what is sure to be a charged atmosphere at TD Garden.
• With names like Matthew Tkachuk and Aleksander Barkov on the shelf, Marchand is actually Florida’s leading scorer on the young season.
• One last Marchand item: for the nostalgic among us, Marchand reported that he had dinner with Zdeno Chara, Adam McQuaid, Patrice Bergeron, and Tuukka Rask on Sunday night. We are old.
• In an odd turn of events, both teams are coming into tonight’s game as losers of four games in a row. The Panthers were shutout by the Buffalo Sabres 3-0 last time out. Given each team’s current run of form, this could be the first NHL game where neither team earns a point. HISTORY!
• To make it even MORE odd, both teams also won their first three games of this season.
• Florida has struggled to score goals early in the season, averaging just 2.14 goals per game; that figure is good for 30th in the NHL. Sam Bennett, a force for Florida in last season’s playoffs, has just one goal to his name thus far.
• While it certainly doesn’t mean a ton in the grand scheme of things, I was surprised to see that the Bruins currently own the league’s third-best face-off percentage at 55.9%.
• Hampus Lindholm missed Sunday’s game as part of the team’s efforts to manage his return from injury, so he’s likely to draw back in tonight.

See ya tonight!

Source: https://www.stanleycupofchowder.com...familiar-face-returns-as-bruins-host-panthers