Bruins vs. Senators: 4 Keys for Boston in Wednesday's Matchup with Ottawa

The Boston Bruins and Ottawa Senators ought to have relatively even tanks when they converge on Scotiabank Place Wednesday night. The Bruins come in one sleep removed from a 3-0 home triumph over the Los Angeles Kings while the Senators are coming straight home from Buffalo on the heels of a 3-2 overtime victory.

Unlike their last set of back-to-back game nights, the Bruins ought to face no time-zone-change issues that may otherwise impede a certain sophomore’s preparedness for action. They should, however, be packing a healthy concoction of confidence and determination.

They will, on the one hand, venture into Ottawa after attaining a victory without their towering captain, a semi-grizzled fourth-liner and their top goaltender. Yet they should also have plenty left over to improve upon as they seek to successfully grab four points in 48 hours on their third try of the season.

Getting Testier

In Tuesday night’s win over Los Angeles, only five Bruins―Joe Corvo, Chris Kelly, Brad Marchand, Rich Peverley and Dennis Seidenberg―got around to issuing more than one shot on Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick.

The other 13 skaters combined for nine shots, including merely one apiece by each member of the Nathan Horton-David Krejci-Milan Lucic line. In addition, Boston landed fewer shots in the latter two periods combined (10) than it had in the opening frame (12).

Logically, that ought to leave them with no room for excuses in the second half of this back-to-back set, especially seeing as Daniel Paille managed to return to action and get back into his rhythm on Tuesday.

On the flip side, especially if Zdeno Chara is still not ready, the ostensibly shriveled blue line’s task ought to be confining the Senators to much fewer than 41 hacks at the Boston cage.

Rough or Smooth

On the whole, the Senators are one of the most frequently short-handed teams in the league. But in each of their last five games, they have managed to put themselves on as many power plays as their opponents, if not one or two more. In that span, they have had an aggregate 24 man-up segments while granting 20 to the opposition for nightly averages of 4.8 and 4.0, respectively.

One of the reasons the Bruins were so heavily outshot in the latter phases of Tuesday’s contest with the Kings was because they brooked four unanswered penalty kills after the halfway mark of regulation. Conversely, they did not have another man advantage after Slava Voynov’s jailbreak at 14:18 of the first period.

Granted, Los Angeles only logged five power-play shots in five opportunities, but Boston had best not push its luck like that a second night in a row. Rather, it should focus on trying to lure out the worst in Ottawa’s discipline, preferably by way of sustained time in the Senators' zone.

Streaking Scorers and Setters

Milan Michalek, the NHL’s top goal-getter with 19 on the year, has struck seven times in his last eight outings, accounting for exactly 28 percent of Ottawa’s goals within the last two weeks.

Jason Spezza has five assists in his last three outings and leads all Senators forwards with 21 helpers on the year. Meanwhile, defensemen Sergei Gonchar and Erik Karlsson have consistently made plays from their point perch for season totals of 17 and 24 assists, respectively.

Apart from that and Nick Foligno’s 10 goals, no other Senator has hit double digits in either the goal or assist column yet. If Boston can curtail each of the aforementioned, Ottawa will need to reach out to some comparatively unreliable resorts.

Fight to the Finish

Both the Bruins and Senators tend to swell up their output as the game wears on. In fact, no other teams in the NHL are nearly as prolific in the closing stanza as these two are, which means no lead ought to be safe Tuesday night.

Boston has scored a combined 51 goals in the first and second periods while charging up 43 within the third period. Ottawa has similarly tallied 46 goals in the first 40 minutes of regulation and 44 in the last 20. No other team has more than 38 third-period strikes to date.

A critical difference in this matchup could be the stamina of the contesting defenses. The Bruins have allowed 20 of their 58 opposing goals in the final period, whereas the Senators have let in 42 out of 105, making the closing frame their least efficient segment.