Bruins, Rangers Looking Ahead to Weekend Showdown at BetLM

Bruins, Rangers Looking Ahead to Weekend Showdown

It’s taken a com­bined 99 games, but the two best teams in the East­ern Con­fer­ence will finally meet Sat­ur­day afternoon.

The New York Rangers, first in the East with 62 points in 45 games, will pay a visit to Boston to take on the defend­ing Stan­ley Cup-champion Bru­ins, who have 61 points in 44 games.

The game (1 p.m. ET, NHLN-US) will mark the first of four meet­ings between the Orig­i­nal Six clubs, both of which have hov­ered near the top of the NHL stand­ings all season.

“I think every­one is excited for this one,” said Shawn Thorn­ton after the Bru­ins’ 4–1 win in New Jer­sey on Thurs­day night. “It’s a big, big test for us. They’re a real good team, well-structured, well-built, well-coached, and they work their butts off. It’s a good test for us.”

“It doesn’t get much tougher than that, try­ing to beat Boston in Boston,” said Rangers goal­tender Hen­rik Lundqvist fol­low­ing a 4–1 home loss to the Pitts­burgh Pen­guins on Thurs­day night. “They’re a really good team. If you don’t play smart against a team like that, they’re going to make you pay. I look for­ward to the challenge.”

The Bru­ins rank first in goals scored and sec­ond in goals allowed; the Rangers aren’t nearly as pro­lific offen­sively, rank­ing 11th in offense but are third in the NHL defensively.

Both teams boast elite goal­tenders, with the Bru­ins poten­tially start­ing reign­ing Vez­ina Tro­phy win­ner Tim Thomas against Lundqvist, who is mak­ing his case for the honor this sea­son. Thomas is ranked third in the League in save per­cent­age at .936 and holds a micro­scopic edge on Lundqvist, who also holds a .936 save percentage.

Tak­ing it down another dec­i­mal point, Thomas’ lead is .9360 to .9359.

Even if Bru­ins coach Claude Julien decides to use his backup goal­tender, it’s not exactly a big step down from Thomas. Tuukka Rask is 11–4-1 with a 1.61 goals-against aver­age and .946 save percentage.

Besides the Bru­ins’ League-leading offense, there’s not a whole lot sep­a­rat­ing them from the Rangers.

“I think it’s going to be a defen­sive game for sure,” Boston’s Daniel Paille said. “Both of our styles are pretty much like that. And, I would expect it to be very phys­i­cal. They have four or five guys that hit con­stantly. So, it’s going to be an enjoy­able one for sure. They’ve been hot all year as well, and they haven’t lost too many games in a row.”

The Rangers haven’t lost three games in row since the first three of the sea­son, but they aren’t exactly fir­ing on all cylin­ders right now. The same can be said for the Bruins.

Boston is 4–3-0 in its last seven games; New York is 3–3-0 in its last six, alter­nat­ing wins and losses over that time.

The Bru­ins are com­ing off a come­back win in New Jer­sey, scor­ing three goals in the third period to win. The Rangers entered the third period Thurs­day tied with the Pen­guins, but wound up los­ing by three goals.

The Rangers have bounced back three times after their last three losses, and they’ll need to do it again to main­tain supremacy in the East.

“It needs to be a bounce-back game,” Rangers defense­man Dan Girardi said. “I feel like we’ve been hav­ing too many of those lately with a loss and a win and a loss. But it’s the same old story — we need to have a huge bounce-back game and it’s against no other oppo­nent than the other top team in the conference.”

Fol­low Dave Lozo on Twit­ter: @DaveLozo

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