Preview: Bruins kick off December against the Avalanche

Dec 3, 2022 - 12:00 PM

Just the facts

When: Tonight, 7:00 PM

Where: TD Garden – Boston, MA

How to follow: NESN, 98.5 The Sports Hub

Rival SBN site: Mile High Hockey

Know your enemy

• 13-7-1, 25PTS, 3^rd in Central Division
• Nathan MacKinnon: 21GP, 8G, 25A, 33PTS; Mikko Rantanen: 21GP, 14G, 17A, 31PTS; Cale Makar: 21GP, 6G, 17A, 23PTS
• Alexandar Georgiev: 11-3-1, 2.58 GAA, .922 save percentage; Pavel Francouz: 2-4-0, 2.70 GAA, .914 save percentage

Game notes

• The Boston Bruins kick off a busy December with a home tilt against the Colorado Avalanche tonight.
• The two will then wrap up their season series very quickly when the Bruins head to Colorado next week on Dec. 9.
• There is A LOT of hockey this month to be played. The B’s have eight home games and six away games in December. The Bruins have a game on tap every other day through Dec. 19 and then a couple back-to-backs before closing things out on New Year’s Eve.
• The Bruins were 1-0-1 against the Avalanche last season — a 4-3 overtime loss on the road on Jan. 26, 2022 and a 5-1 win at home on Feb. 21, 2022.
• Brad Marchand is on a five-game point streak with two goals and five assists — three of those points have been on the power play. This season, he’s picked up most of his points on the power play —12 points — and only six of his 18 points have come during 5v5.
• David Krejci is also on an impressive six-game point streak, but unlike Marchand, most of Krejci’s points are from 5v5 play. He’s registered six goals and three assists in those games.
• The Avalanche are 3-2-0 in their last five games. They last played on Thursday, Dec. 1, topping the Buffalo Sabres, 6-4. MacKinnon had a five-point night in the win with two goals and three assists. Colorado scored three power-play goals in the win.
• It looks like Colorado has had some recent bouts of injury, as Mile High Hockey wrote about here. They’re obviously still a good hockey team and are coming off a win after getting shut out the previous game.
• On special teams, it’s sure to be a good game. Head-to-head, it’s a showdown of the two best power plays in the league. The Avalanche have the best power play right now at 33.8% while the Bruins are behind them at 30.1%.
• On the penalty kill, the Bruins sit at third overall at 83.5% on their PKs while the Avalanche are 22nd at 76.3%.
• We haven’t heard who’s going to start in net. Head Coach Jim Montgomery had said last game he wasn’t going to give Tampa Bay’s power play any advantage with who they were going to face so let’s see if he has the same strategy tonight.

See ya tonight!