Bruins At Hurricanes: Game Day Preview

by Bob Wage on Jan 14, 2012 3:57 PM EST in Carolina Hurricanes Game Day Previews

Defending Stanley Cup Champions, the Boston Bruins, (28-11-1) are in town tonight to take on the Carolina Hurricanes, (15-23-7) as one of the top teams in the East take on one of the worst at the RBC.

After a slow start, the Bruins have regained top form and goalie Tim Thomas is a big part of that. The B's are 8-2-0 in their last 10 games and 26-7-1 since losing to Carolina on October 18th. The Canes are 5-4-1 in their last 10.

Cam Ward will start for the Canes. Claude Julien did not name a starter for Boston.

	GP	MIN	W	L	EGA	GA	GAA	SA	SV	SV%	SO
2011 - Cam Ward	38	2190	15	16		114	3.12	1152	1038	.901	1

	GP	MIN	W	L	EGA	GA	GAA	SA	SV	SV%	SO
2011 - Tim Thomas	27	1541	18	7		50	1.95	826	776	.939	4

	GP	MIN	W	L	EGA	GA	GAA	SA	SV	SV%	SO
2011 - Tuukka Rask	15	867	10	4		23	1.59	421	398	.945	3

Jaroslav Spacek will sit both games out this weekend, so look for Derek Joslin to take his spot. Kirk Muller said that Jeff Skinner will not play tonight, although he might play tomorrow in Washington. Chad LaRose is day-to-day, and he skated some today. I would expect the same forward lines at Thursday night.

Tlusty, Staal, Ruutu
Nodl, Sutter, Dwyer
Ponikarovsky, Jokinen, Samson
Stewart, Brent, Sutter

The Bruins are led in scoring by Tyler Seguin who has 33 points in 39 games. They will be looking for more discipline than they showed in the penalty filled fiasco back the last time these two teams met when Carolina won 4-1 in Boston. During that game, Nathan Horton challenged Tim Gleason and Tukka Rask skated down the ice to say hello to Cam Ward. Neither Cane responded in kind.

The Canes are 2-0 against the Bruins so far this season.

Click on the Stanley Cup of Chowder for more info about the Bruins.

Eric Staal has warmed up and is producing like most expect of him now. He has points in four straight games (1G 7A) and has registered 13 points in the last seven games.

This is the first game of another back-to-back for Carolina as they will travel to Washington after the game for a match against the Caps tomorrow.

The game will be televised locally by FS Carolinas and we will have the open game thread/Live Blog starting up at 6:30.

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Comments

It will take 60min of constant grit to beat the Bruins ,anything less ,and they’ll hang a snowman on the Canes.

by hellfish on Jan 14, 2012 4:21 PM EST reply actions

Need some back-checking

This is a good game for Skinner to miss. Although Brad Marchand is still out on suspension there are still other Bruinettes to bring the bad stuff.
I look for the B’s to be on their best behavior for this one, which could be a bad thing for the ’Canes.

by drifterscape on Jan 14, 2012 4:32 PM EST reply actions