Bruins Busy Stretch Begins

Starting tonight the Boston Bruins will play 31 games in 66 days. With a shortened season, every game is equally important and there is no room for errors. Tonight the Bruins will take on the New York Islanders, hoping to make it a 4-out-of-5 wins roadtrip. The Bruins are 11-2-2 while the Islanders are 8-10-1. The Bruins are obviously off to a great start but they’ve only played 15 games thus far while everyone else has played at least 17. To make up for it, it’s full speed ahead for the team in a playoff paced schedule.

Tuukka Rask has been on his A-Game thus far! (Credit: Flickr/ Slidingsideways)

B’s Nearly Perfect PK:
Game after game, the Bruins penalty kill proves to be consistent. The B’s lead the league with a 94.8% of penalty kills that leads the NHL by a fair margin. In 15 games, the B’s have let up only 3 power play goals. In their most recent game Sunday against the Florida Panthers, the Bruins PK was 4-for-4. They have gone 6 straight games without letting up a goal with a man (or sometimes two) down (19-for-19).

Optimistic Islanders:
This is the second time the two teams are meeting, with Boston taking the first match but don’t count out the Isles just yet. They have won 4 of the last seven games, including a 5-1 victory over defending Eastern Conference Champs New Jersey Devils. After a few bad seasons, you can only go up right?

Who’s hot:
Once again, Tuukka Rask is mentioned in this section for his strong goaltending. His is 5-0-1 in his last six starts, and in that stretch didn’t give up more then two goals. Islanders, you can have Tim Thomas! All kidding aside, Rask’s strong performance is definitely part of the reason the B’s have done so well thus far.

On the Isles side of things is Center John Tavares who is tied for the League lead with 13 goals and 12 assists. He is in the top three in the NHL in total scoring. Basically, he should have a target on his back tonight.

Puck drops at 7:30 tonight and you can check out the game on NESN or NBCSN!

For the Islanders side of things here on Aerys Sports, click here!