The Boston Bruins (55-11-5) continue their chase for a record points haul Saturday at home against the Tampa Bay Lightning (42-25-6).
Jim Montgomery has steered his side to five consecutive victories and bookmaker Bovada has the odds at -165 for the streak to continue on Saturday. The odds are at +140 for the Lightning to end a three-game losing skid, and the goals total is set at 6.0 with the odds at -115 for the over and at -105 for the under.
※ Current Odds Date & Time: March 24th, 8:00 P.M. (EST)
The Bruins sit on 115 points with 11 games left to play, and considering how dominant they have been throughout the campaign, the team has a very good chance to break the all-time regular-season points record that was set in 1976-77 by the Montreal Canadiens with 132 points.
Boston has already become the fastest team to hit 100 points for a campaign, beating the same Canadiens team by one game. Sitting on 55 wins, there’s also a realistic possibility to break the record for most wins for the season, which currently stands at 62 and is held by the Detroit Red Wings and the Lightning themselves from the 2018-19 campaign.
Montgomery’s team has simply been world-class all over the ice and can make any opposition look silly, especially with David Pastrnak in top form up front. The Czech superstar has just posted his new career high with 49 goals and is on pace to become only the sixth Bruins player ever to reach 110 points in a single campaign.
Pastrnak and his team will hope to get revenge here after suffering one of their rare losses this season against Tampa Bay. Back in January, Andrei Vasilevskiy produced a big 37-save performance and Nikita Kucherov led the offense with three assists in a 3-2 Lightning win. The two will be expected to play a key role again Saturday.
A lot of focus will be on Vasilevskiy, with him having dropped back-to-back starts, allowing seven goals in the process. He has won only three starts this month and needs to start turning things around for the team to regain a bit of momentum and confidence ahead of the postseason.
Vasilevskiy and his teammates will hope to enjoy another successful trip to Boston. The Bruins have a great 5-1 record across the last six head-to-head meetings, but visiting the TD Garden has suited superbly for Tampa in recent years, with the team winning seven of the last nine road games in the match-up.
