Bruins Focus: B’s Face Light Load As Sharks, Sens Make Trip To Boston

The Bruins are hot to begin the 2019-20 season and show no signs of slowing down.

Boston is coming off a 3-0-0 week with wins coming against the Toronto Maple Leafs, St. Louis Blues and New York Rangers, outscoring its opponents 16-7 during those games.

Now the Black and Gold has a good chance to continue the torrid pace this week against two teams near the bottom of their respective divisions in the Ottawa Senators and San Jose Sharks. There’s also a strong possibility the Bruins have center David Krejci back in the mix after he missed nearly two weeks with an upper-body injury.

Boston still is dealing with injuries to Karson Kuhlman (fractured leg), Chris Wagner (lower-body), Joakim Nordstrom (infection) and Par Lindholm (upper-body), but the emergence of Anders Bjork has helped fill the void in the bottom-six, as well as provide a boost to the secondary scoring.

Let’s take a look at what’s on deck for the Bruins.

Tuesday, Oct. 29 vs. San Jose Sharks, 7 p.m. ET
Saturday, Nov.. 1 vs. Ottawa Senators, 7 p.m. ET

What You Need To Know
The Sharks are slumping, losing three of their last four games. They sit in 27th place in goals against, allowing 3.58 tallies per game, while the B’s rank first in allowing just 2.09 per contest. San Jose, however, ranks first on the penalty kill with a 93.2 percent success rate. The Bruins have dominated on the power play, amassing 11 man-advantage goals in as many games, good for first among all 31 teams.

Ottawa also is struggling to begin the year and has lost three of its last five games. Both Craig Anderson (2-4-0) and Anders Nilsson (1-3-1) have yet to really find their groove, with the latter surrendering four goals on 16 shots in the Senators’ 4-2 loss to the New York Islanders last Friday. The red-hot Boston offense could spell bad news for its opponent’s goalie tandem, as the trio of Patrice Bergeron, David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand have combined for 54 points (23 goals, 31 assists) this season.

Who Bruins Need To Watch Out For
This very well may be Joe Thornton’s last game at TD Garden. Thornton, who played for Boston from 1997-2005 before being traded to San Jose in 2005, is in the midst of his 22nd season. And at age 40, it makes one question how much he has left in the tank. The forward scored a hat trick the last time these two teams met in February, the first for Thornton since 2010.

But the B’s will need to keep their eyes on Brent Burns, Evander Kane, Tomas Hertl and Logan Couture, who all have double-digit points for the Sharks. Kane leads the way with seven goals, while Kevin LeBlanc has the second-most with five. Burns is riding a three-game point streak.

The Senators, meanwhile, have just one player with double-digit points in Connor Brown (one goal, nine assists). Chris Tierney leads Ottawa’s struggling offense with four goals. It probably won’t get much better for the Sens when they head to TD Garden as both Tuukka Rask (5-0-1) and Jaroslav Halak (5-1-1) continue to be brick walls for the B’s and give their team a chance to win in each start.