The Boston Bruins are in action tonight in a snow-infused Big Apple, taking on the New York Rangers inside Madison Square Garden.
It's a game against a team Boston thoroughly humiliated just 16 days ago, almost directly leading to their franchise announcing they'll be sellers and plan on revamping the roster.
A rare public-declaration of the white flag. You better believe this Rangers team will be with some pride tonight, at least in theory. It's still a dream matchup for the Bruins. A team that's wilted against extreme physicality all year, with spotty goaltending and struggles to generate offense.
The Bruins should be all over the Rangers in this one. Nikita Zadorov's status remains unknown after suffering a scary injury Saturday. Though he finished the game Saturday night, Bruins' Head Coach Marco Sturm indicated he's no longer 100%.
"I was really surprised when our trainer came, and he’s like, ‘He’s going to try.’ I was like, ‘OK,’" Sturm said. "It shows a lot, too, that he came back and he was not 100 percent. I think we could all see. But he was out there battling hard for the guys."
It would not be surprising to see Zadorov get the night off, allowing Henri Jokiharju to re-enter the lineup after the birth of his child.
With three games in four nights, Jeremy Swayman and Joonas Korpisalo will split the next two games, with Swayman expected to get tonight while Korpisalo takes tomorrow against the Nashville Predators.
Then comes Thursday night's massive game against the Philadelphia Flyers, a team five points behind Boston for the final wild-card spot with two games in hand.
It's another big trio of games, leading to an even bigger finale ahead of the Olympic Break. The Stadium Series comes on Sunday against the Tampa Bay Lightning, the current leader in points percentage in the Eastern Conference.
Three days later, the Bruins head further south in Florida to take on the Florida Panthers, a team that's now three points back of Boston with one game in hand.
If Boston wins two of the next five games, it would be incredibly imperative to beat Florida and Philadelphia in regulation. Boston can be extremely safe and secure in a playoff spot heading to the break.
It's not as if Boston hasn't already passed most tests with flying colors. Saturday, they trailed not once, not twice, but three times against the Montreal Canadiens and still came back to beat them in regulation.
The Bruins are one point back of those Canadiens now, with the same games played, while the Bruins have an astounding five-game lead in the tiebreaker, regulation wins.
In fact, the Bruins are tied for second in the conference in that department, with 23 regulation wins. Only the Lightning have more, at 25.
It's another key piece of this puzzle. When the season began, Bruins President Cam Neely and General Manager Don Sweeney were in lockstep that this team would be a tough out, and that it was the biggest non-negotiable for this team.
52 games later, and while you could find more elite teams, it'd be a struggle to find a tougher team than this Boston Bruins squad. This team, with the exception of one or two games all year, has been a complete nightmare for opponents to deal with.
That's with a rotating cast of defenseman, where there's been 11 different players to suit up, and Zadorov remains the only one to play in every game. If he misses tonight, that'll mark every opening night defenseman with an injury and time lost.
Offensively, only three forwards have played all 52 games: Fraser Minten, Sean Kuraly, and Mark Kastelic. Not one top-six forward.
If you expand it to 51 of the 52 games, then you can add two forwards and one defenseman back into the mix: Morgan Geekie, Pavel Zacha, and Andrew Peeke.
This team's guts are made up of grit and grind, without an ounce of quit in their system. It's silly to think five games can decide how everyone views the front half of this season, but that's exactly what's going to happen.
If the Bruins inexplicably collapse and go, say, 1-4-0, with losses to Florida and Philadelphia, they could sit outside a playoff spot and be looking hard at selling pending UFAs, including Peeke and Viktor Arvidsson.
Keep on rolling, with a 4-1-0 stretch, and they could sit third in the division, maybe six or eight points clear of the playoff cut line. That would lead to buying, considering a reunion with Dougie Hamilton or acquiring forwards like Blake Coleman to bolster this group.
Five little games. Three in four nights. The New England Patriots are heading to the Super Bowl after going 8-26 the previous two years. The Bruins could look across town to see that and think, one year after a disastrous campaign, why can't we go on a deep run?
The Bruins have the elite pieces. The upcoming schedule will decide whether or not the Bruins add or subtract to that mix.