By: Mark Allred | Follow me on Twitter / X @BlackAndGold277
The American Hockey League’s Providence Bruins get back to work tonight, as the 2025 holiday break is officially over with a short weekend trip across the border to Springfield, Massachusetts, for the lone regular-season game this weekend. Tonight’s game at the MassMutual Center against the Springfield Thunderbirds is game four of 12 in this regular-season series between these two Atlantic Division teams, which has been trending in the right direction recently.
Tonight’s host, the Springfield Thunderbirds, is unbeaten in regulation in their last six games, earning points in all of them with a record of 4-0-2 in that duration. Springfield has not put forth its best effort in front of the fans at the MassMutual, posting a 2-4-2-1 record, and is 6-1-2-1 in its last 10 games. The Thunderbirds’ last home game came against the Boston Bruins’ top minor-pro affiliate back on December 6th, 2025, when the Providence team kept their road winning ways strong, this season, earning a 4-3 overtime victory out in Western Massachusetts.
So far, after three games, the Providence Bruins are 2-1-0 against the Thunderbirds this year, heading into game four of the season tonight. Providence has a slim margin in goals for and against in this season series. The Bruins have outscored the St. Louis Blues’ AHL affiliate 10-9 so far in the season series. With the amount of rest over the past few weeks from local scheduled games and the holiday break, I hope to see an offensive game tonight as the Bruins focus on finishing off the last two games of the 2025 calendar year.
The Bruins currently sit in the second position both in the Atlantic Division and Eastern Conference with a 20-5-1 record and 41 points as the Bruins’ AHL farm team gets closer to the midway point of the 2025-26 campaign. Providence goes into tonight’s road action with an impressive 11-1-1 record and 7-2-1 in the team’s last ten games. The B’s also look to get back to their successful road game this year as Providence dropped their last road effort to division-leading Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins when they lost 2-1 in overtime at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Place in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
Leading into this evening’s tilt against the Birds, Providence team Captain Patrick Brownleads the Bruins with 10-18-28 numbers in 26 games played and has 3-8-11 in his last ten games. Forward Fabian Lysell is second in team scoring with 11-11-22 in 22 games played so far this season and has 5-5-10 totals in his last ten games. Third in team scoring is Providence forward Georgii Merkulov, who’s contributed 11-11-22 totals in 24 games and has posted 6-5-11 numbers in his last ten games. Big power forward Riley Tufte comes in at the fourth spot in the Providence team scoring with 10-10-20 numbers in 19 games this year, and lately produced 3-3-6 in his last ten games. Rounding off the AHL Bruins’ top-five in team scoring is forward Dans Locmelis, who’s produced 8-7-15 in 26 games this season and has 3-4-7 in his last ten contests.
The goaltending, by far, has been the story of this 2025-26 regular season, between the netminding tandem of minor-pro veteran Michael DiPietro and AHL rookie Simon Zajicek. The 24-year-old Zajicek is expected to be the backup netminder tonight, with recently recalled netminder from the ECHL, Maine Mariners, Luke Cavalin, getting his first Providence start of the season, per longtime Providence Bruins writer Mark Divver. Also, per Divver earlier this week, the injured DiPietro was seen on the ice for the first time, taking shots since his recent lower-body injury. There’s no timeline for the return of the best AHL netminder in the past two seasons.
The undrafted Zajicek is off to an incredible start to his North American professional hockey career. The AHL rookie netminder is 10-1-1 with a 1.93 goals-against-average and a .934 save percentage. The 6’-2” 187-pound goaltender has consistently been a top-five netminder in the league and looks to make it two wins in a row with tonight’s battle on the road in Springfield.
Before the recall of 24-year-old goaltender Luke Cavalin from Maine, the former 2025 ECHL Kelly Cup Champion with the Trois-Rivieres Lions. Cavalin appeared in 14 games for the NHL Bruins “AA” affiliate this season, posting a record of 9-4-1 with a 2.05 goals-against-average and .927 save percentage. Luke’s last AHL action came last season, where he appeared in three games for the Laval Rocket.
The following game on the Providence Bruins schedule is a Wednesday night tilt back at the MassMutual Center for game two of this three-game road trip, which ultimately finishes up on January 2nd, 2026, with a road game in Hartford, Connecticut against the Wolf Pack. The Pack are sitting dead last in the Atlantic with nine wins in 27 games and 5-7-3 on home ice at the newly named PeoplesBank Arena, formerly the XL Center.
If you’re in the Springfield, Massachusetts area and want to attend tonight’s Providence Bruins road game or a future contest at the Amica Mutual Pavilion in downtown Providence, Rhode Island, please consider purchasing your tickets via our affiliate and official StubHub Tickets website HERE. The StubHub link provided is also a great resource for all your sports ticket and concert needs across North America. We thank you in advance for considering this as a way to help monetize and pay our sports media company’s bills.
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