BRIGHTON, Mass. – With the Bruins finishing up their season series against the Montreal Canadiens on Monday night at TD Garden, it will end Boston’s regular season series against the Habs, the Buffalo Sabres, and the Toronto Maple Leafs. That might not be such a noteworthy thing if the B’s were in the March or April portion of their schedule, but it is a little odd to be done with so many divisional opponents at just past the halfway portion of the regular season.
The Bruins still have some dates against both the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers coming up, but tonight’s tilt vs. the Habs closes the book on three Atlantic Division rivals that Boston is going head-to-head with for a playoff spot. It certainly struck some of the Bruins players as “weird” as they thought about it on Monday morning following morning skate at Warrior Ice Arena.
“It’s weird the way the schedule has played out this year,” admitted Patrice Bergeron. “There are probably a lot of teams that are in the same boat, but we seem to have played a lot of divisional opponents early on. It is what it is, though, and you have to kind of be ready to play whoever you’re facing.”
Certainly the Bruins have done as much as they can to put themselves in an advantageous position after taking three of four from the Maple Leafs, and they now sit just two points behind Toronto for second place in the Atlantic Division. Meanwhile, the Habs are in the eighth and final playoff spot just a single point ahead of the Buffalo Sabres, and will be bringing plenty of desperation to the Garden on Monday in what should be a hotly contested game between the two ancient rivals.
Regardless of what awaits the Bruins in the second half of the schedule, they know they need to get good results in these final games before playing some different opponents for the rest of the season.
“I guess if you get into a race at the end of the year, it’s good to get into some divisional match-ups,” said Bruce Cassidy of his Bruins, who are 7-3-0 in their last 10 games. “But we play the schedule in front of us and off we go. I think for us it’s about our team finally hitting a little bit of a stride because of A) health and B) consistency in our lineup. We’re getting the things we need every night: good goaltending, secondary scoring and some of the stuff early in the year that we hoped would be coming around. Hopefully we can build off what we’ve done over the last couple of weeks.”
It will certainly be exciting no matter who the Bruins are playing down the stretch given how close together so many of the Eastern teams are behind the pace-setting Lightning. But there’s an element of “weird” and oddness that the Bruins are all done with the Leafs, Sabres, and Canadiens after Monday night, and perhaps that’s something the NHL schedule-makers might want to take into account in the future when considering fan interest in good, old-fashioned divisional rivalries.
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