Flames: 31-22-3, 65 points, 4th in the Pacific, 8th in the West, 15th in NHL.
Bruins: 28-20-7, 63 points, 4th in the Atlantic, 8th in the East, 17th in NHL.
This is a battle of two teams holding on to the last playoff spot in their respective conferences. The Bruins are far from their President's Trophy winning form, but to be fair they've lost some key players through free agency and trade, and some of the remaining key players have been injured for large chunks of the year. It's a team that's in the early stages of transition from their veteran players to their younger players. It won't happen overnight, but they'll move from Chara to Hamilton, Bergeron to Pastrnak, Lucic to Smith. The Bruins have some very good young pieces to build around, and some very good veterans who can still contribute, but they just haven't put it together for much of this season. Their year has been marred by long stretches of very inconsistent play, but they've also had 2 separate 5 game winning streaks. They're a tough team to figure out, and there's talk of speeding up a retooling process by trading away guys like Chara and Lucic before their values are entirely gone. This most recent stretch has been very troubling for Bruins fans. Losing 3 straight and 4 of their last 5, they've given up 10 goals in their past 2 games, and have only scored more than 2 goals once in the last 5.
The Bruins offensive attack has been poor all year, managing only 2.58 GF/G (22nd in NHL). For comparison, the Flames have the 11th ranked offense at 2.84 GF/G. The Bruins' leading scorer, Patrice Bergeron, has 37 points which ranks him 75th in the league. Yes, they have some decent depth, but no top line talent this year. David Krejci has been hurt for a large chunk of the year, but that's the only offensive weapon that has missed significant time. When Carl Soderberg comes out of nowhere to be your 2nd leading scorer, you're probably in trouble, despite the good d-man numbers from Dougie Hamilton and Torey Krug.
Defense and goaltending are still the strong suit of this Bruins team, and they lean heavily on them. Tuuka Rask has played the 5th most minutes of any goalie in the league, and owns a very good 2.32 GAA and .922 Sv%. The Bruins as a team have given up 2.47 GA/G, good for 8th in the entire league, despite the fact that their SA/G are at 29.8, ranked 19th. For comparison, the Flames have given up 28.2 SA/G, ranked 8th, leading to a top 10 defense at 2.55 GA/G. Both of these teams are good 5 on 5 having identical ratios at 1.06, and both have nearly identical power plays around 17.3%. The Bruins PK is yet another top 10 unit for the flames to face, operating at 83.8%, so it will be tough sledding for a power play that has improved of late.
Despite the even stats this year, the Bruins have dominated the Flames in recent years. They won both matches last year by shutting the Flames down offensively, allowing just 1 goal against in 2 games. They didn't play the year before due to the lockout shortened schedule, meaning the 3rd most recent meeting was the famed 9-0 debacle that spelled the beginning of the end for Brent Sutter. Of course, that's ancient history, and this is a very different Flames team than the one that suffered that awful fate 3 years ago, but the Flames still have to prove they can beat some of these teams that have given them problems in the past. Not only that, their record against the East doesn't inspire confidence at even a limping opponent like the Bruins, and we all know how dangerous an injured bear can be. The Bruins are desperate for a win, as their lead over the Panthers for the final playoff spot has slipped to just 3 points, and while the Flames are also desperate to win again, they probably feel a little better about themselves after beating the Canucks for the 2nd time in a row on Saturday. Whoever comes out with more fire in this one will walk away with the 2 points, that's all there is to it at this point.
Roster Notes: No major roster shakeups for either team. Smid is still out for the foreseeable future with no timeline for his return. Ramo gets his 2nd consecutive start after gutting out the win on Saturday. No significant injuries to report for the Bruins.
Flames
Gaudreau-Monahan-Hudler
Bouma-Backlund-Jones
Glencross-Jooris-Raymond
Byron-Stajan-Colborne
Giordano-Brodie
Russell-Wideman
Diaz-Engelland
Ramo
Bruins
Lucic-Krejci-Pastrnak
Marchand-Bergeron-Smith
Kelly-Soderberg-Eriksson
Paille-Campbell-Cunningham
Chara-Hamilton
Seidenberg-McQuaid
Krug-Miller
Rask
Go Flames Go!!!