Last night Milan Lucic (pictured above) was honored at the Vancouver Giants game, his former team, for his time spent there. Hopefully this evening will not be his night. Boston started the season as one of the best teams in the NHL, just destroying opponents. This was mainly fueled by Tim Thomas, who is still playing exceptional: 27-8-6, 1.99 GAA, .939 S%, 7 SO. It is unclear if he will get the start or Tuukka Rask (one of the great names in all of sports by the way), who has been up and down this year.
Although this is the first, and only, meeting between these two, the Bruins are a different team than they were at the start. They shipped Blake Wheeler and Mark Stuart to Atlanta for Rich Peverley and Boris Valabik, Joe Colborne and picks to Toronto for Tomas Kaberle, and they also picked up Chris Kelly from Ottawa. Boston currently sits third in the East with 75 points, but are actually fourth in overall points. They are on a three game win-streak, but more importantly better away from TD Waterhouse Garden than in it, posting a 19-7-4 record on the road.
The Canucks are coming off a win against St. Louis on Thursday, but a loss against the Canadiens on Tuesday, in which they were outplayed. We saw an encore of that in the second period against the Blues, which Cory Schneider addressed as being a problem throughout the season. However, the Canucks are 22-5-5 at home, so this should be a good match-up looking at the records. The big concern is if Thomas starts. His record speaks for itself, and if they come in with a second period let down, Boston has the talent to take over the game. The Bruins scoring is fairly spread out over the roster, so anyone can put the puck in the net, so line match-ups will be the key.
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