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In a simply loaded month of March, with 15 games in 31 days (and four sets of three games in four nights in 25 days), a Tuesday night visit from the absolutely dreadful Buffalo Sabres is the closest thing the Boston Bruins will get to a breather. If the Black and Gold play their cards right, of course.
This isn’t to pick on the Sabres by any means, but they’re a straight-up bad team. Their power play is the worst in the league, and their penalty-kill is just as bad. They’re allowing a league-high 35.4 shots against per game, and their leading scorer has a whopping 38 points. This is a game that the Bruins, regardless of Buffalo’s familiarity with the club as Atlantic Division rivals, should be able to win with their skates on their hands and gloves on their feet. (OK, maybe that’s a stretch, but you never know.)
But head coach
Claude Julien wants to keep his group focused on the task at hand.
“Well anybody who watched the [Capitals vs. Sabres] last night should know better. That’s my take on it. The Rangers beat them two to nothing with an empty net goal. They’re very competitive,” Julien said of Buffalo. “When you go out there and just go out there and play and compete hard and obviously no pressure you become a pretty good team and that’s what they are right now. The last two times we beat them it took overtime so we’re certainly not in a position to come out and take them lightly.”
For the Bruins, this is a game that could serve as a status check on a couple of things above all else.
Their power play, which is currently lost in an 0-for-14 spell since last Tuesday, could and should get a boost against the aforementioned weak Buffalo penalty kill. And struggling scorers (Reilly Smith and Carl Soderberg immediately come to mind) will have some golden chances to get off their respective ice-blocks against a Buffalo team that’s simply not equipped to contain skillful lines in their own end.
And there’s obvious pressure on Smith, with just one assist in six games since signing a big extension, to find ways to produce on the B’s most talented line, with Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand.
“[Smith]’s shooting more. He’s had some couple of good shots there and this morning again I saw him shooting some pucks. He’s got a good shot, he’s just got to probably use it a little bit more and I think a lot of times he’s trying to feed his line mates where the choice would probably be shoot first,” said Julien. “A little bit of a shoot first mentality is going to help him out a little bit and certainly give him some confidence. If you got confidence the rest of your game kind of follows up, you got more energy, you got the confidence to make more plays and so on so forth. I think right now he’s just not able to convert a lot of his chances so right now he feels like he’s not bringing a lot.”
With a win, the Bruins would sweep the season series with the rival Sabres for the first time in franchise history. Shockingly, to date, neither one of these teams has swept a season series against the other in 45 years of head-to-head action. Both have been close on numerous occasions, though, of course.
The Masked Men: Anders Lindback vs. Niklas Svedberg
For the second time in as many nights, Buffalo gives the start to
Anders Lindback. The 6-foot-6 Lindback, acquired from Dallas in exchange for Jhonas Enroth on Feb. 11, has yet to record a win in a Sabres sweater, posting an 0-3-2 record in six games played. But even with the lack of a victory, the towering Swede has played considerably strong, all things considered, posting a .924 save percentage and 2.69 goals against average for Buffalo. Lindback has not fared well against Boston in his career, though, with zero wins and an .886 save percentage in five games against the B’s.
It’s a game against the Sabres, so naturally, Boston counters with
Niklas Svedberg. Although starts have been a rarity for Svedberg in 2015 (he’s made just four since the calendars turned to ‘15), playing the Sabres has been a near automatic for the Swede, and for good reason. In two games against Buffalo this season, the 25-year-old has two wins and stopped all but two of the Sabres’ 47 shots against. And for a goaltender that simply doesn’t play enough, No. 72 has done his job to win games for the Black and Gold of late, stopping 29-of-31 in an overtime win against New Jersey two starts ago, and 36-of-39 from the Red Wings in his last start, a 5-3 win on Mar. 8. This will be just Svedberg’s sixth start at home in 2014-15. He’s 2-2-0 with a .916 save percentage at TD Garden this year.
Stats of Note
- The Bruins are 7-0-1 when
Ryan Spooner has at least one point.
-
Brad Marchand has 13 goals and 20 points in 26 career games against Buffalo.
- Boston center
Carl Soderberg has just one goal in his last 27 games, and zero in his last 23.
- Buffalo forward
Tyler Ennis has three goals and five points in his last five games played.
- The Sabres’
Cody Hodgson has points in just five of his last 31 games.
-
Matt Moulson has eight goals and 17 points in 22 career games against the Bruins.
Other news and notes
Here's a kinda weird thing-- Although both Svedberg and Tuukka Rask took part in the morning skate, the Bruins have recalled Jeremy Smith from Providence on an emergency basis, and say that Smith would be available for tonight's game if need be.
Expect
Brian Ferlin to serve as the B’s healthy scratch for this one. The 22-year-old Ferlin has one assist and 19 hits in six games this season, but has been a healthy scratch for six straight contests.
On an injury front, the B’s will be without top-line center
David Krejci (knee),
Brett Connolly (finger), and defenseman
Kevan Miller (shoulder, done for the year). Some good news on that front? Connolly was skating this morning -- albeit without a stick or puck -- while Krejci is progressing faster than anticipated and could even be ready to play by this weekend (maybe).
Old friend and 2014 trade deadline pickup
Andrej Meszaros missed Monday’s game with a hand injury, and has just three goals and nine points in 48 games for the Sabres this season. The Sabres are also without top-four defenseman
Zach Bogosian (lower-body), while goalie
Chad Johnson (lower-body) will be out for ‘a while’ according to head coach
Ted Nolan.
If the Bruins win tonight’s game, they will become the seventh team to sweep their season series with the Sabres this year. The Anaheim Ducks, Edmonton Oilers, Minnesota Wild, New York Rangers, St. Louis Blues, and Winnipeg Jets have accomplished the feat. Six other teams have the chance to accomplish this before the season ends, too. Yeah, it’s been a real rough year for everybody in Buffalo.
This will be the Bruins’ fifth straight year with a St. Patrick’s Day game. They are 2-1-1 on St. Patrick’s Day since 2011. Three of the four games have been one-goal affairs, with two requiring extra time. The Bruins have not lost in Boston on St. Patrick’s Day since 1994.
Jaromir Jagr had the game-winning goal for the Penguins that night, while Ray Bourque and Adam Oates scored for Boston.
Ty Anderson has been covering the Boston Bruins for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, is a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com
Boston Bruins Blogger •Bruins Feature Columnist • 
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