Bruins, Predators look for points in playoff races
BOSTON -- The sizzling Nashville Predators did themselves and the Bruins big favors before heading up to Boston for Tuesday night's game.
The Preds beat the Islanders 3-1 in Brooklyn for their fourth straight win and their seventh in the last eight games. Nashville remained a point ahead of the St. Louis Blues for third place in the Central Division.
But the win also helped the Bruins, who, coming off a win in Brooklyn, open a three-game homestand that starts a stretch of six of the last seven at home with Tuesday's game.
The Islanders' loss, their fifth straight at home, kept them from moving into a tie with the Bruins into the Eastern Conference's second wild-card spot.
The news wasn't all good for the Bruins. The Tampa Bay Lightning rallied from 4-1 down and beat the Chicago Blackhawks in overtime, and the Carolina Hurricanes picked up a point against Detroit.
So heading into this game, Boston trails the Toronto Maple Leafs by a point for third place in the Atlantic, the Leafs with a game in hand.
The Bruins lead the Lightning by a point, the Islanders by two and the Hurricanes by four. Carolina has a game in hand.
The Predators played backup Juuse Saros on Monday night, leaving Pekka Rinne for Tuesday night's game. Rinne is 7-3-1 on the back end of back-to-backs this season. Saros defeated the Bruins 2-1 on Jan. 12 in Nashville and played well behind a strong defensive effort by his team Monday night.
"Of course it's big," Viktor Arvidsson said on the team's television postgame show. "Every point matters right now. We go into tomorrow with some confidence and just have to try to keep it going."
It was Arvidsson's 29th goal of the season, including a club-record five of the team's league-leading 11 short-handed goals. The Bruins are tied for second in the league with 10 as the teams get together Tuesday.
Boston comes into the game with a bit of a goaltending controversy hanging over the head of interim coach Bruce Cassidy. Last Thursday, Cassidy was critical of Tuukka Rask for the goalie's play in the 6-3 home loss to Tampa Bay. Then Rask shows up with a lower-body injury on Friday and Anton Khudobin plays well in the win in Brooklyn.
On Monday, Cassidy made it clear that Rask will play Tuesday if he can, showing he's ready to ride the guy that kept the team afloat during a shaky first half that eventually led to the firing of Claude Julien.
Rask led the team onto the ice for practice Monday, but Cassidy said he will wait to hear from him Tuesday before naming a goalie for the game.
"Good day back on the ice. Feel good," Rask said after practice. "See what the decision is, but I felt good today, got another morning skate tomorrow and go from there."
As far as the injury, Rask said, "It just popped up suddenly, but luckily we got ahead of it, did some treatments there and I feel good now. Never an easy decision this time of the year (not to play), but injuries happen. I talked to the training staff and managers and we came to the decision that (Khudobin) was going to play the game.
"We played a good game and luckily we got the win. It's obviously tough from a personal standpoint, but it's never about one guy or two guys missing. It's a team game and I had full confidence that they were going to get the job done as long as we played the way we did. It was great to see."
Rinne is 4-0-1 with a 1.89 goals-against average and .940 save percentage lifetime against the Bruins. Rask is 2-1-2 with a 2.45 GAA and a .917 save percentage against the Predators.
The Preds swept the two games with the Bruins last season before this season's win in January.