Jets @ Bruins | Mon Jan 21| 12 Noon | TD Garden | Game 2 | "Zapping the Bear"
Thanks to Resurrection for the graphic inspiration - love your avatar!
JETS (0-1-0) at BRUINS (1-0-0)
TV: TSN-JETS, NESN
Season series: First of three meetings. The Jets and Bruins split four games last season, with
the home team winning each time.
Big story: If the Stanley Cup is to return to Beantown for the second time in three seasons,
the Bruins will accomplish the feat relying on a different netminder than the one who led them
to the title in 2011. Tim Thomas is taking the year off, and so Tuukka Rask reclaims the No. 1
job in goal. His first act was a promising one, as Rask stopped 20 of 21 shots in an opening
night win over the Rangers.
Team Scope:
Jets: The road wasn't a kind place for Winnipeg last season, and the 14-22-5 mark away from MTS
Centre was a big reason why the Jets failed to make the playoffs. Getting off to a good start
in enemy territory becomes even bigger after the Senators handed them a 4-1 defeat on home ice
Saturday afternoon. The Jets got the start they wanted, as Dustin Byfuglien opened the scoring
on a power-play goal six minutes in, but Winnipeg's offense was stymied the rest of the way.
"You could see that some guys were fatigued with the pace," coach Claude Noel said. "It's
really difficult in a situation like that. You have to simplify some things. You couldn't reel
guys in. They just wanted to do well. I thought it looked like some guys were out eight or nine
months."
Bruins: There's not much time in a 48-game season to get into midseason form, so Boston's 3-1
win Saturday over New York at TD Garden had to be encouraging for coach Claude Julien. The
Bruins outshot the Rangers 14-7 in the first period and got the first goal by Milan Lucic,
doubled their lead in the second courtesy of Daniel Paille, and put the game away in the third
when Johnny Boychuk scored.
"That's also one of the things we tried to touch up on this week of practice, is go over our
systems again and getting back to being defensively sound and having those good, quick
breakouts, and even being quick in the neutral zone," Lucic said. "So it was great to see that
everyone was fired up for this game, especially against one of the best teams in the Eastern
Conference and all of the NHL, and it was good to see that we rose to the occasion."
Who's hot: Byfuglien's power-play goal Saturday was the 29th of his career, and he led the Jets
with six shots.
Lucic was also over the stat sheet for the Bruins -- in addition to his goal,
he had three shots, four hits and 12 penalty minutes. Zdeno Chara finished plus-2 with four
shots, three hits and two blocks.
Injury report:
Winnipeg defenseman Zach Bogosian (wrist) and forward Antti Miettinen (upper
body) are out indefinitely.
Boston forward Jordan Caron (upper body) is expected to miss another week.
No I think you got to show confidence in Pavlec. You play him against Boston, and let Montoya take the Caps so that Pavlec can be ready for the home game against Pittsburgh.
I'm not expecting a win today (though I'll certainly take one) but I really need to see some serious compete on the part of the Jets. If they fold up and go home early I'm going to be very concerned...
Booked the day off work to watch the Jets. The side bonus is not having to head downtown in -30 weather. Its going to be a tough one for our boys and we need a much better effort then the home opener. I have a feeling Scheifele will shine today get a goal and an assist and fire up the should he stay or should he go debate even more.
Go! One of the best teams in the League? Typically when this rag-tag bunch plays their best game.
).
