Photo Credit: Kirby Lee (USA TODAY Sports)
By: KG Follow me on Twitter: @kgbngblog and on FanCred at K G
The Bruins are back from a three-game road trip to California, where they faced off against Anaheim, LA, and San Jose. The Bruins came home with four of six points, and the for the first time this season they have won back to back games. With the rest of the Atlantic division on losing streaks, (Ranging from 1 OTL to 3 straight losses) the Bruins need to capitalize as much as possible on their current success.
The Bruins surprised a lot of people on their trip by beating two teams that had better records than them, with the Kings on top of the Pacific division with a current (12-7-2) record, and San Jose, who is sixth in the Pacific at (10-8-1). I said on FanCred that this road trip could make or break the rest of the season, so hopefully, this is a kick-start to a new mentality for the Bruins. And the team is getting players back from injury at what seems to be almost every other day, like Spooner for the game against New Jersey.
The Bruins have played 19 games this season (8-7-4) for 20 points, good for solo fifth in the Atlantic division and three points behind Washington for the second Wild Card position in the East. The surprising thing is that Anton Khudobin won both of those games while letting in two goals total and making 63/65 saves both games combined to have a 0.969 save percentage, adding to his season save percentage of 0.935%, which leads the NHL. Khudobin has been an incredible back up for Tuukka Rask while he tries to get his game back on track.
To conclude, the Bruins are starting to show signs of life now, which couldn’t have happened at a better time. The Atlantic division is on a slide but will be surging back after Thanksgiving. The Bruins showed that they can beat better teams on their Cali road trip, something that they will need to do for the rest of the season if they want to be anywhere close to the playoffs. Anton Khudobin was a large contributor to those wins, and will likely see more ice time if Rask continues on the path he is. I personally believe that Rask will be back to his former self, but the start of his season was definitely disappointing.
Sources: NHL.com, TSN.ca, Leftwinglock.com
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