The Bruins are back home Thursday night looking to stop a two-game slide and settle in during the second game of a three-game homestand, but they’ll have their hands full with a Utah Mammoth team that has already been sharp on the road and even sharper on special teams.
Boston enters at 2-2-0 after an uninspiring 4-1 loss to the Ottawa Senators on Monday night, and the early-season picture has been a little messy. The Bruins have scored just two goals over their last two games, and they remain one of five teams in the NHL without a power play goal this season. That was enough for Marco Sturm to start mixing things up, first on Monday night and then again Wednesday morning when the team got back on the practice ice in Brighton.
Sturm didn’t lock anything in after practice, either. “We’ll see when we wake up and meet again with the coaching staff and see if we like it or not and go from there.”
The line combinations he skated with Wednesday featured Pavel Zacha alongside David Pastrnak and Morgan Geekie on the top line. JJ Peterka was with Fraser Minten and Marat Khusnutdinov, while Elias Lindholm and Casey Mittelstadt skated with the Bruins’ leading goal scorer, James Hagens (2). The defense pairs are expected to stay the same, and Frederic Brunet is expected to get a look with the first power play unit.
Boston will also be trying to rediscover the home-ice edge it leaned on last season, when it finished tied for the most home wins in the league with 29.
Utah arrives in Boston in a different place. The Mammoth are 3-1-0 and are in the middle of a five-game road trip, with Boston marking their fourth stop. They’ve won two of three so far away from home, with their lone trip loss coming Sunday night against the New York Rangers.
The special teams numbers are where Utah has really separated itself. The Mammoth own the league’s top power play at 8-for-13, good for 61.5%, and their penalty kill has been nearly just as imposing at 13-for-14, which ranks third.
Thursday also brings a pair of reunions. JJ Peterka will face his old team for the first time, and former Bruins defenseman Andrew Peeke will do the same after signing a one-year deal with Utah on July 3.
Jeremy Swayman is expected to start in goal for Boston, carrying a 2-1-0 record with a .914 save percentage and 2.30 goals-against average. Karel Vejmelka is the expected starter for Utah; he enters at 2-1-0 with a .913 save percentage and 2.02 goals-against average.
The Bruins are scheduled to skate at Warrior Ice Arena at 10:30 AM, with further updates from Sturm to come after that. The season series continues Saturday, Jan. 23 in Utah after Thursday’s 7:00 PM meeting in Boston.
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