Arizona Coyotes Host the Big, Bad Bruins: Game Preview, Line Combos, Roster Moves

The Desert Dogs hold court for the Beantown Boys

The Arizona Coyotes are hosting last year’s Presidents Cup winners, the Boston Bruins, at Gila River Arena tonight.

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As someone who grew up a devout Boston Bruins fan, I’m a little conflicted about tonight. The Coyotes are the greatest team I’ve ever had the privilege of covering.. but as someone who’s still convinced that my Brad Marchand shirt brings both the Bruins AND the Coyotes luck and prosperity, this past week has been relatively panic-inducing.

Luckily for the Coyotes, the Bruins are quite possibly one of the few ‘powerhouse’ teams in the league that they could have no problem finishing off. Top-line center David Krejci has only spent about fifteen seconds on the team’s active roster — and those fifteen seconds aren’t getting compounded with more ice time tonight, as he’s still out on injured reserve.

Joining him on injured reserve is captain Zdeno Chara. To put this in perspective, the Bruins are basically short their Antoine Vermette and Zbynek Michalek… and with both Niklas Svedberg and Tuukka Rask in the middle of cold streaks as bad as Mike Smith’s, the Coyotes are actually the team with the upper hand here.

Details for Saturday night’s game:

DATE: Saturday, December 6th
TIME: 6:00 P.M.
LOCATION: Glendale, Arizona
ARENA: Gila River Arena
TV INFO: Fox Sports AZ, NESN

Key Storylines to Follow:

Nov 14, 2014; Vancouver, British Columbia, CAN; Arizona Coyotes goaltender Devan Dubnyk (40) looks for the puck against the Vancouver Canucks during the first period at Rogers Arena. The Arizona Coyotes won 5-0. Mandatory Credit: Anne-Marie Sorvin-USA TODAY Sports

1. TRACK THE NET

Boston fans were baffled on Thursday night when head coach Claude Julien chose to keep starter Tuukka Rask in the game for all sixty minutes, despite racking up seven goals against by the final buzzer. Backup Niklas Svedberg hasn’t been nearly as hot for Boston this season as Devan Dubnyk (who will start tonight), but Mike Smith‘s poor start is drastically worse than Rask’s.

Although neither team has been particularly strong recently, so much of this game will ride on how the netminder plays. Like Arizona, Boston is a team that doesn’t mind starting off behind — but they have a much better record of pushing to finish strong in the third.

If the Coyotes can start off attacking whomever Boston puts in net, then shift to a defensive standpoint and protect Dubnyk in the second and third, this game could easily fall in their lap. You have to admit — pulling off a win over the famed Boston Bruins would feel pretty nice.

2. ZONE STARTS

Arizona has looked absolutely disastrous on offense lately — but Boston has been a complete mess on defense. If the Coyotes can use Jordan Martinook to push the game down into Boston’s zone for the greater portion of the game, a win will be infinitely more likely.

The biggest thing Arizona will have to look out for is Boston’s Bergeron line. Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron, and Reilly Smith are all leading the team in scoring — Bergeron leads in overall scoring with eighteen points, and both Marchand and Smith lead in goals alone. Smith provides quick offense, Bergeron is arguably the league’s best two-way forward, and Marchand is both a playmaker and an instigator; this line ruins teams all the time. It won’t do much against Bergeron, but the other two aren’t particularly defensive-minded… the goal should always be to start in front of Boston’s net in the faceoff circle.

3. TEAM TOUGHNESS

The Coyotes’ defense can shut down Boston well enough — but for all the defensive trouble they’re having, Boston is still a big, mean team. The fact that they’ve sized down in the past season and still boast guys like Kevan Miller, Dougie Hamilton, and Milan Lucic… Arizona may have a couple bigger guys featured in their lineup, too, but they certainly don’t want to do anything to give Boston an opportunity to muscle their way to Dubnyk’s net.

Last season, Marchand led the league in SH goals, so he should always be the player heading off the ice for a Boston penalty. Arizona can’t get drawn in by him, though — with the way the Coyotes‘ penalty kill has looked lately, the last thing they need is to be down a man facing Boston.

Tweet of the Pre-game:

Roster Changes:

New Faces:
Jordan Martinook, F (48)
Andrew Campbell, D (45)

Lost Faces:
Kyle Chipchura, F (cleared waivers- likely scratch)
Rob Klinkhammer, F (trade- Pittsburgh for P. Samuelsson)
David Schlemko, D (reassigned – Portland, AHL)

Predictions:

Both teams desperately need a win, particularly after Thursday. The Coyotes got shut out 4-0 by the Los Angeles Kings and the Bruins spent sixty minutes sloppily exchanging goals in a 7-4 loss to the San Jose Sharks… whichever team loses tonight can probably expect something pretty drastic to happen to the lineup.

The Coyotes have Devan Dubnyk in net tonight, though, and a major day of roster changes should have sparked this team. Mike Smith is — and always will be — a competent goaltender; he’s got the ability to be a playoff champion on his best day and a competent netminder on his worst. For whatever reason, though, the team hasn’t been playing well in front of him… and if the team continues to play as well in front of Dubnyk as they have so far this season, things should go quite well.

It’s hard to lend my confidence to a team that isn’t the Boston Bruins in a game where the black and gold take the ice, but I really think the Coyotes might have this one in the bag. It’ll be close — might even go into overtime — but the Coyotes could walk away with those long-awaited two points.

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