Washington Preview

Tonight's expected lineup:

Axelsson-Savard-Murray
Sturm-Metropolit-Kessel
Lucic-Krejci-Kobasew
Reich-Sobotka-Thornton

Chara-Wideman
Ference-Ward
Stuart-Hnidy

Thomas

Of Note: Kessel and Kobes flip flopped as Julien says he is doing some minor "tweaking. "So much speed...You've got a double whammy on the wings" Metro said about the new second line.

McKeon's Take: From now (March 3rd) until March 16 the Bruins play nine games. They have 4 on the road and five at home. The Bruins need to remain playing as if tomorrow is not a guarantee in order to continue flying high. Now, do I think the Bruins will continue to win and take the next 9? No, but, I do expect them to perform well. This team needs to put as much room as possible between themselves and teams like Buffalo and Philadelphia.

For tonight, Z and D-Wide (I just made that up, not sure how I feel about it) have another big test in shutting down a very hungry Alex Ovechkin. The young gun broke a goal scoring drought last game against Toronto after not putting the puck in the net for 6 or 7 (i forget which) games. However, when Ovechkin was not scoring, he was still setting guys up. Ovechkin is leading the league in goals with 49.

The Bruins will likely face the newly acquired, Cristobal Huet, who beat the Bruins in all three attempts this season with a 1.67 goals against average and a .943 save percentage. The Bruins seem to struggle against Huet as they alway seem to struggle with guys like him, Johan Hedberg and Cam Ward.

For those who gamble, go with the under in this game. Ironically, the last time the Bruins lost, I chose the score with the Bruins coming out on top. When they won the following game I decided it would be good luck (sorry, it's the goaltender's superstition in me) to no longer predict the Bruins to win. The winner of this game will win either 2-1 or 3-1.

PS. I just noticed the top of the Capital building in the Washington logo. Props to the folks in Washington who came up with this new logo and going with colors that should be represented by a team in this nation's capital and changing the logo for a team that is trying to turn a corner. Also, I want to send out props to Head Coach Bruce Boudreau who has done a phenomenal job since "coming in for relief" (I'm so excited baseball season is here). Boudreau is also a fellow product of the Manchester Monarchs AHL hockey club.