Two teams coming off shutout losses will face off on Saturday afternoon when the Boston Bruins visit the Ottawa Senators.
Boston, which was playing without two-thirds of its top line, was blanked 6-0 by the visiting Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday. The Senators, in turn, dropped a 2-0 decision to the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Bruins will be without Brad Marchand as he continues his six-game suspension for roughing Penguins goalie Tristan Jarry. Boston captain Patrice Bergeron remains out with an upper-body injury.
“So, how are we going to weather (their absences?) We’re certainly going to need a little more pushback from guys who are expected to bring it, and some other veteran guys that might not but have to step up in their absence,” Boston coach Bruce Cassidy said after the loss. “We were lacking both tonight in huge quantities.”
After a tight first period, Carolina pulled away with three goals in the second. Boston was 0-for-4 on the power play in the loss.
Adding to the man-power issues, the Bruins lost defenseman Matt Grzelcyk to an upper-body injury. His status for Saturday is uncertain.
The Bruins were scuffling before they lost Marchand and Bergeron. They have lost five of their past seven games (2-4-1) and totaled eight goals in their last five contests.
Now Boston begins a four-game road trip that includes a pair of games in Ottawa.
“If we go into a game thinking, ‘OK, we don’t have Bergy, we don’t have March, we’re dead,’ you can’t have that,” Boston defenseman Charlie McAvoy said after Thursday’s loss. “In our room, we believe in each other, we believe in what we’re doing. We have to.”
The Senators will be looking to end a four-game homestand on a high note after winning the first two before Thursday’s loss. Ottawa, which had been struggling offensively, scored four goals in each of its two wins before being blanked by Casey DeSmith.
It was the fifth time Ottawa has been shut out this season.
“It went a little dry on us tonight,” Ottawa’s Austin Watson said. “We needed some secondary scoring from your bottom six and we didn’t get that tonight. The big boys can’t do it all and we didn’t get anything on the power play and sometimes that happens.”
The Senators continue to struggle with the man advantage. They have one power-play goal in their past seven games, though they didn’t have an opportunity Monday against the New Jersey Devils.
Goalie Matt Murray, who was traded from the Penguins to the Senators on Oct. 7, 2020, was stellar in his first meeting against his former team. He stopped a season-high 42 of the 43 shots he faced before the Penguins added an empty-net goal.
“We played a team that is rolling right now and they sure came to play tonight,” Murray said. “We battled. We stayed in the game. If we get one, it could have gone either way.”
Murray has won five of his past eight starts (5-1-2).
Marchand and Bergeron each scored in the teams’ first meeting of the season, a 3-2 home win for Boston on Nov. 9.
–Field Level Media
