Category — Atlantic Division

Moore

When they visit the Bruins at TD Garden tonight, the Florida Panthers are hoping a couple newly masked men will provide a boost to their lineup. [Read more →]

Crosby

Pittsburgh injuries and two-game losing streak have forced the Penguins to juggle their lines and give Sidney Crosby some new linemates for tonight’s game at TD Garden against the Bruins. [Read more →]

BOSTON — Consecutive wins have eluded the Bruins all season so far. Tonight they’ll try for their first winning streak of the season when they host the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Pens come to Boston shorthanded, as Evgeni Malkin and Sergei Gonchar are out and Kris Letang will probably join them. But any time Sidney Crosby is available, the Pens are dangerous. For a complete preview, check out Mark Marino’s story at Boston Bruins Examiner.

Another week, another Bruins pursuit of a two-game winning streak.

Today the Bruins will really find out if they’re finally hitting their stride, as they visit the fast-starting New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. Fresh off their 2-0 shutout of Edmonton yesterday behind Tuukka Rask’s 19 saves and a Norris-worthy performance from Zdeno Chara, the Bruins are still in search of their first winning streak of the season.

You can read the complete preview at the Boston Bruins Examiner.

Langenbrunner

After losing last night at home to Buffalo, the New Jersey Devils are 1-4-0 at the Prudential Center. In contrast, they arrive for tonight’s game with the Bruins at TD Garden with a 5-0-0 road record. That has some of the Devils players baffled.

“Thankfully we’re playing well on the road,” Devils captain Jamie Langenbrunner told the Bergen Record. [Read more →]

BOSTON — Time off is only beneficial for so long.

Tonight the Bruins finally get back into action for the first time since Saturday. The New Jersey Devils come to town, and they’re almost as shorthanded as the Bruins. Boston, without Marc Savard and Milan Lucic, won’t get any sympathy from the Devils, who come to town without Patrik Elias, Paul Martin and Jay Pandolfo.

For a complete preview of the game check out the Boston Bruins Examiner.

The Boston Bruins won’t play a game until Thursday, but it’s fairly certain their opponent that night will be down a couple of key bodies.

New Jersey learned today that both defenseman Paul Martin and forward Jay Pandolfo will be out four to six weeks — Martin with an arm injury and Pandolfo with a dislocated shoulder. [Read more →]

Tollefsen

When the Boston Bruins take the ice at Wachovia Center in Philadelphia for an Eastern Conference clash with the Flyers, they’ll still be relying on a handful of young forwards to make up for the injury absences of Marc Savard and Milan Lucic.

The Flyers, who will finally take the ice after playing just one game over the last 11 days, will be counting on some neophytes as well — but on their back end. Danny Syvret and Ole-Krisitian Tollefsen should make up the Flyers’ third pair because of an injury to Ryan Parent. [Read more →]

The Boston Bruins are still searching for their first winning streak of the season, so tonight they’ll try to make it two victories in a row when they visit the Philadelphia Flyers.

Philly hasn’t played since the weekend, while Boston just prevailed last night at home against Nashville, 3-2. It’ll take another balanced scoring effort for the Bruins to hang with one of the Eastern Conference’s preseason favorites. For more on tonight’s game, check out the Boston Bruins Examiner.

The Boston Bruins will try to regain their hard-working approach to the game after getting whacked by Anaheim last night. And in some ways they’ll have the perfect opponent across from them at TD Garden tomorrow, as the New York Islanders are coming to town.

On the one hand, the Bruins could take the Isles, who lost to Ottawa in overtime 3-2 last night, lightly. But more likely the Bruins will look at the Isles as a team they can beat with their advantage in talent if they work as hard as the Isles always do. If not the result could be an embarrassing loss on home ice, as the Bruins try to make sure they can finish this season-opening homestand with a winning record.

Jones

Here’s one from Philadelphia that won’t make any Boston Bruins fans’ hearts bleed. Word around the Flyers is that defenseman Randy Jones, he of the infamous concussion-causing hit on Patrice Bergeron in October 2007, might be out of a roster spot because of his $2.5 million cap hit. [Read more →]

Emery

It seems fitting that a goaltender so enamored with fighting he once had a caricature of Mike Tyson adorning his mask will now be suiting up for the Philadelphia Flyers.

After weeks of speculation, today former Ottawa netminder Ray Emery inked a one-year deal worth a reported $1.5 million with the Broad Street Bullies. The enigmatic Emery, famous for his late arrivals and his run-ins with authority (both on and off the ice), spent last season in the KHL. [Read more →]

Sutter

Following a wait that was bordering on the NHL version of Brett Favre’s retirement watch, Brent Sutter finally resigned as head coach of the New Jersey Devils today. Sutter cited his junior team in Red Deer, Alberta, and family matters as his reasons.

The hot rumor for the last couple weeks, of course, has Sutter becoming the new head coach in Calgary, where his brother Darryl is the general manager. But right now, Brent Sutter says he has no immediate plans to take over the Flames. Any contact the Flames would make with Sutter requires the permission of Devils czar Lou Lamoriello, who still has Sutter under contract for one year.

In two seasons against New Jersey with Sutter behind the bench, the Bruins were 3-2-3. [Read more →]

It might just be down right depressing to be a visitor to the Nassau Coliseum today. The Boston Bruins will visit the rat-filled old building with their sights clearly focused on Thursday’s playoff opener, but the New York Islanders know they’re finishing up yet another playoff-less season and they’re the team with the lowest point total in the NHL.

There is absolutely nothing to play for in this one, except tuning up. And that’s where Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas comes in. With the emergence this season of Manny Fernandez as a capable back-up (except for his mid-season injury woes), Thomas should be more rested and ready for the playoffs than last spring. But no one wants to be too rested. So after taking yesterday’s game off, Thomas has to try to put in a full 60 minutes against the Isles, who will be looking to at least head into the offseason on a high note. This is the time of year when scorers especially want to pad their stats for potential contract negotiations and arbitration hearings, so you figure they’ll be shooting from everywhere toward Thomas. [Read more →]

BOSTON — In the annals of the current Boston Bruins, March 22, 2008 will be a day that goes down in history.

That’s the night the Bruins, having lost their previous seven head-to-head meetings with Montreal during the regular season, lost again. But this time at Bell Centre the Bruins pushed the Canadiens to a shootout before they fell, 3-2.

The game featured a fight by P.J. Axelsson with Maxim Lapierre and a whole lot of physical play. Some say that set the tone for the seven-game playoff series that would unfold a month later. And that series set the tone for the Bruins’ history-making 2008-09 regular season.

Today the Eastern Conference-leading Bruins have to avoid letting the New York Rangers set a similar tone at TD Banknorth Garden. If the season ended today, the Bruins and Rangers would be first-round foes. Like the Bruins of last season, however, nothing is set in stone as far as the Rangers making the playoffs. Florida and Buffalo will have what to say about that eighth spot through the season’s final week, and the Rangers will be playing this one like a playoff game.

Although the Bruins play at their best when they answer physicality with a lot of the same, they’re going to need to toe the line. New York will try hard to get under the skin of Zdeno Chara, Milan Lucic and the rest, in an effort to psyche them out for today and beyond, but the Bruins will have to keep their emotions in check and stay within the groundrules of the game. That’ll assure that even in defeat they’ll still hold the psycological edge that comes with the conference’s No. 1 seed. [Read more →]