12:30p ET, TD Garden
Boston, MA
TV: NBC
Radio: 97.1 The Ticket
Bruin Blog: Stanley Cup of Chowder
Today more than any other day in the history of hockey….
Nay…
The history of the world…
Today is a day that proves that hard work truly does pay off.
Today is a day…
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, Luke Glendening: 1st Line Winger.
The mad scientist and soon-to-be highest paid head coach in the NHL, Mike Babcock, has made what might be the single most insane, idiotic, awful, anti-analytics move in the history of hockey.
And it’s so incredibly dumb that it just might work.
All jokes aside, I sure as hell hope it works. Let Glendening work his ass off, get the puck and immediately give it to Pavel Datsyuk or Tomas Tatar to score goals.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Quite frankly, when it comes to this game today, I don’t care who it is for the Red Wings or how they get it done. Just beat the Bruins. This game, above and beyond all other regular season games, is one I badly want the Wings to win. I live in Boston. I technically work for the Bruins. I’ve watched the Patriots own the Lions. I’ve watched the Red Sox upset the Tigers in the ALCS. I had to live through the Bruins beating the Wings in round one last year. It all sucked. I want this game.
I sure as hell hope the Wings got their losing ways out of their system on Friday night because they’re going to get a Bruins team that is feeling pretty high right now. Boston will be playing the 2nd game of a back-to-back (Oh hey… Calgary was too? Great). Yesterday, the Bruins tied their game with the Flyers with 15 seconds left and then won in overtime. I’m sure they feel pretty good about themselves right now. They’re desperate for points and they’re going to come out hard.
As far as match-ups go today, we’ll likely see the Datsyuk line up against the Patrice Bergeron line. Let’s just say we lose that because Bergeron is really damn good (and Glendening is on that line too). So what’s left? Well, there’s no David Krejci and I can’t see Claude Julien putting two kids and Lucic up against Henrik Zetterberg’s line. My educated guess is that we’ll see them matched up with the Carl Soderberg line. Milan Lucic and the Boston kids will see our kids. Bruins fans seem to hate Gregory Campbell these days. You could say he’s their Daniel Cleary. I’d give the Wings a slight advantage on the 4th line, but really who cares? This game will be decided by the best players on the ice, not Joakim Andersson. Sorry, bro.
Also, few words of advice to the Wings… take advantage of Dennis Seidenberg/Matt Bartkowski and only play Brendan Smith for like 7 minutes, because I’m sure the plan will be to try to get him to do stupid things like fight Zdeno Chara. Don’t do that, Brendan.
If there are any Wings fans in the area going to the game today, come say hello. I’ll be one of two people in the entire arena wearing a Brendan Smith jersey, so I shouldn’t be too hard to spot. I’ll be two rows behind the Bruins bench in Loge 1. I accept beer as payment in exchange for thumbs up photos. It really is a win-win for all parties.
The Expected Lineups (Subject to Change)
Forwards
| Tomas Tatar | Pavel Datsyuk | Luke Glendening |
| Erik Cole | Henrik Zetterberg | Justin Abdelkader |
| Gustav Nyquist | Riley Sheahan | Teemu Pulkkinen |
| Drew Miller | Joakim Andersson | Stephen Weiss |
Defensemen
| Niklas Kronwall | Jonathan Ericsson |
| Kyle Quincey | Danny DeKeyser |
| Brendan Smith | Marek Zidlicky |
Goaltenders
| Jonas Gustavsson (starting) |
| Jimmy Howard |
Scratches: Daniel Cleary, Tomas Jurco & Jakub Kindl
Injuries: Darren Helm (oblique), Alexey Marchenko (oblique) & Johan Franzen (concussion)
Forwards
| Brad Marchand | Patrice Bergeron | Reilly Smith |
| Milan Lucic | Ryan Spooner | David Pastrnak |
| Chris Kelly | Carl Soderberg | Loui Eriksson |
| Daniel Paille | Gregory Campbell | Max Talbot |
Defensemen
| Zdeno Chara | Dougie Hamilton |
| Dennis Seidenberg | Matt Bartkowski |
| Torey Krug | Adam McQuaid |
Goaltenders
| Tuukka Rask (starting) |
| Niklas Svedberg |
| BRUINS | THE MATCH-UP | RED WINGS |
| 32-22-10 (74 pts; 1st in East WC) | Record | 36-16-11 (83 pts; 3rd in Atlantic) |
| 2.64 (19th in NHL) | Goals Per Game | 2.87 (7th in NHL) |
| 2.50 (11th) | Goals Against Per Game | 2.48 (8th) |
| 17.7% (21st) | Power Play % | 25.4% (1st, bitches) |
| 81.4% (16th) | Penalty Kill % | 82.4% (11th) |
| Brad Marchand (21 goals) | Goal Leader | Tomas Tatar (25 goals) |
| Patrice Bergeron (46 points) | Points Leader | Henrik Zetterberg (53 points) |
- The Red Wings are 253-236-95-2 (W-L-T-OTL) all-time in the regular season against the Boston Bruins./
- Last 10 Games: Boston 4-3-3, Detroit 5-3-2/
- Gustavsson is 4-4-1 all-time against the Bruins in 11 regular season games with a 3.12 GAA, .893 SV% and one shutout./
- F*ck you, Max Talbot./
