One can only hope that when various Boston Bruins popped bubbly when the clock stuck midnight, the champagne bubbles that oozed down their hands washed away the stink that lingered like a fermented cheese. It is clear that the last few months of 2014 weren’t good to the Boston Bruins. The cap mismanagement, the weird front office moves [looking at you, Froyo], the abysmal play by some of the “top” players on the team and the injuries.
Oh the injuries.
But 2015 is here and there’s a chance that the Bruins can turn the last few months around and have all the shitty FB accounts and Bruins subreddit come back here and yell at us. If the Bruins make the playoffs, we will gladly take your verbal abuse and if you’re lucky we will even wear that skimpy little number you like so much.
Real talk: Boston is clinging to the playoff picture like the last crab hanging onto a pube as the green shampoo washes over the nutsack. They look above them and see Toronto (a team that historically they’ve dominated but this year have had issues with) and the Rangers (who has three games in hand and are playing tonight). They look below them and see the Panthers [41 points] (who have three games in hand on Boston) and Ottawa [37 points, two games in hand on Boston].
These games against teams who would normally be viewed as lesser opponents are considerably larger because thew Bruins are slumping.
Or on the downside of a fantastic 6-7 year run.
Or whatever the hell you want to call it.
So the first chance to right the wrong and continue a hopeful slide into the Wild Card spot is against Ottawa. The Senators have gone through some shit of their own this season including firing their walrus head coach. As I outlined above, the Senators are nipping at the Bruins heels in the standings and a win against the Bruins would greatly increase their chances.
Boston and Ottawa are right next to each other in goals scored per game and goals against per game. Ottawa has the edge in G/G (goals per game) at 2.61 to Boston’s 2.60. Defensively, Boston is a tad better than Ottawa with Boston sitting at 2.63 (18th) and Ottawa at 2.67 (19th). What sets these teams apart is their Corsi For %.
Now I know a lot of our readers hate advanced statistics but corsi is a pretty important one. Corsi measures “The percentage of on-ice shot attempts (on goal, missed, or blocked) taken by the player’s team; also known as CF%” (provided by war-on-ice). So to break it down, corsi measure possession. Boston has a CF% 52.6 which is good for 8th in the NHL. Ottawa, on the other hand, posts a CF% of 48.4 which ranks 24th overall. That’s a massive difference and it could be the key to this game.
Obviously possession is important but when you are shooting 11.44% on the season (1156 shots/101 goals), the more possession the better.
Know The Enemy
Projected Lines
Milan Lucic – David Krejci – Seth Griffith
Brad Marchand – Patrice Bergeron – Reilly Smith
Chris Kelly – Carl Söderberg – Lui Eriksson
Craig Cunningham – Greg Campbell – Dan Paille
Zdeno Chara – Dougie Hamilton
Dennis Seideneberg – Matt Bartkowski
Torey Krug – Kevan Miller
Tuukka Rask
Media
Puck Drop: 1:00pm EST
TV: NESN
Radio: 98.5 The Sports Hub
STREAMS: HERE
Gameday Image/Video
I’ve been binging on Parks and Rec
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