Bruins vs. Leafs: Stuff To Look Out For

The Bruins take on the Maple Leafs tomorrow night, ending a 4-day break. Here are a few plotlines to follow:

Statement Game: The two teams are basically neck-and-neck in the conference and divisional races; a Leafs win would vault them past Boston into an unexpected 2nd place. Two weeks ago, Toronto surprised the Bruins by playing a pretty solid game and scoring 4 straight goals. The secret is out -- they might not be a dynasty in the making, but the Leafs regularly exceed expectations and are not a doormat. In this game there will be no surprises, so it will basically be a benchmark to see whether Toronto is for real.

Rest or Rust?: The Bruins began their season with a frantic schedule including two long road trips, so the Powers-That-Be rewarded them with a few days off after Saturday's victory over Dallas. Under normal circumstances I'd be worried that they'd come out and stink up the Gahden for at least 20 minutes, but that might not be the case this time around. The team was supercharged after the emotional, fight-filled win over Dallas and has had 4 days to let that energy stew. I would not want to be the Leafs in this situation.

Playing to Their Strengths: The Leafs are solid on offense (12th) but one of the worst defensive teams in the NHL (27th). The Bruins are pretty much the opposite (25th and 12th, respectively). That's pretty much all you need to know about how they'll approach this game. Daring prediction: the Leafs will try to score a lot.

Manny?: No word yet on starting goalies, but this is the sort of game you'd expect Julien to hand over to Manny Fernandez. Tim Thomas has been smoking hot of late, but Manny needs reps if he's going to actually compete for the #1 position... though that ship appears to have sailed already. [update: Boston.com predicts that Thomas will start his fifth straight game tonight. This pretty much puts a fork in the notion that he and Fernandez will be a platoon -- hope that bench seat's comfy, Manny.]

Clean Bill of Health: Chuck Kobasew is expected to return to the Bruins lineup after nearly a month, which makes the Bruins officially a healthy team with nobody on IR (of course there are always murmurs about unreported injuries, particularly about Chara's health). Likewise, the Leafs have no injuries at present. [update: Looks like I spoke too soon on this one. Kobasew will not play until at least Saturday, and the Bruins will be missing the services of Shane Hnidy with the mysterious "lower body injury". Mark Stuart is day-to-day with the flu; no word as to whether he skates tonight.]

Hunwick In, Sobotka Out: Fan favorite Vladimir Sobotka was sent back to Providence, presumably to make room for Kobasew's return. Word on the street is that Shane Hnidy will sit out the game after giving his fists a nice workout on Saturday, and will be replaced by rookie Matt Hunwick. Hunwick played a solid game against the Habs in his only other appearance, so it will be interesting to see what he does with this opportunity.

Shootouts: Combined, the teams are 1-6 in the skills contest. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Leafs Blogs:
Bitter Leaf Fan
Down Goes Brown
Battle of Ontario
The Wonderful World of Loser Domi
Pension Plan Puppets

And just for kicks, the best Youtube vid you'll see today:

Bruins vs. Habs: Stuff to Look Out For

Not that a Boston-Montreal matchup needs any extra hype, but here are a few little plotlines to consider as we go into tonight's game:

Ryder's homecoming: Lost in all the pregame centennial hoopla will be the return of Michael Ryder to the BellForum. So far he's lived up to his hype (and contract) with 3 points in his first 2 games. More importantly Ryder has clicked with Marc Savard, as each of them has made a sweet dish to the other for a goal. There will be a lot of nerves prior to gametime, and probably a lot of heckling, but Ryder has been one of the Bruins' best players and has to show up in top form tonight.

Sobotka back in the lineup: Everybody knew that Vlad the Lesser deserved to make the big-league roster, so it might be a blessing in disguise that he was called up to replace Kobasew. Sobotka, like Kobie, adds a spark to the lineup that can jump-start the Bruins out of their mental hibernations. More importantly, I would expect him to be on the 4th line with Yelle and Thornton, meaning Milan Lucic will most likely be taking on a larger role.

[update: bruinshockeyblog reports that George Laraque will make his Habs debut tonight, and Carbonneau has stated more or less directly that the intention is to erase Lucic as a physical presence. This will be a major clash of muscle, and is pretty much guaranteed to lead to a punching contest sooner or later.]

The Habs are a bunch of pricks: They're bad enough under normal circumstances, but with a large pregame ceremony celebrating a full century of being poor winners, the Canadiens and their fans will have a little extra French in their system tonight. Look for guys like Kovalev and Lang, to whom obnoxiousness is precious fuel, to have a big game.

Sweet, sweet discipline: Though nobody will say it out loud, Andrew Alberts' tendency to jump out of position had a lot to do with his banishment to Philadelphia. The Wild had some success stretching the Boston defense and forcing them out of position, and the Habs would love to catch the Bruins playing a little pond hockey. The only way the B's win the game is by playing smart, disciplined defense... keep an eye on Matt Hunwick to cause a few skipped heartbeats.

The odds are on our side: The Bruins haven't won a game in Quebec in nearly two calendar years. Tonight will be either their 100th victory or their 200th loss in Montreal. The laws of probability favor victory for the Bruins on several fronts, though probability has never been much of a factor in this rivalry.

Other preview action:
the-jumbotron has a pre-game primer including all the French you should ever need to know.

Stanley Cup of Chowder has some fun link action and vids.

Inside the Den has a nice piece on Michael Ryder's return to Montreal.

WickedBruinsFan makes it all seem very easy to understand.

The Bear Cave has all the stats you can handle, fool.

The Big Bad Bruins is having marriage problems.

Cornelius Hardenberg teaches a life lesson at the end of the post, not unlike G.I. Joe.