The Boston Bruins are seemingly recovered from a recent three-game losing streak, while the New Jersey Devils are optimistic they are rebounding from a lengthier slump.
The Bruins seek their fourth straight win Wednesday night in Newark, N.J. when they visit the New Jersey Devils, who hope to keep making up the points they lost during a three-week stretch last month.
The Bruins are 9-5-2 since opening with a 10-game points streak. Three of those losses occurred in a four-day span when Boston was outscored 17-8 in lopsided losses to the Detroit Red Wings, New York Rangers and Columbus Blue Jackets.
Since those one-sided setbacks, the Bruins are 4-1-0 in their past five with three of those wins coming by more than one goal. Their most recent game was a 5-3 home win over the Arizona Coyotes on Saturday afternoon.
The Bruins scored five goals for the first time since Nov. 18 as David Pastrnak scored twice for his third multi-goal game this season. Charlie Coyle, Kevin Shattenkirk and Danton Heinen also scored as the Bruins recovered from allowing two goals in 32 seconds and held Arizona scoreless on five power-play chances.
"We get a lead, it's up to us to see if we can play the right way, close it out," Coyle said. "Those are games you're going to have to get used to, no matter what the score is, really. But we want to keep playing the same way, not sit back, just play the right way."
Boston played short-handed due to the injury absences of Charlie McAvoy and former Devil Pavel Zacha. McAvoy missed Saturday's game, while Zacha was injured against Arizona and did not participate in Boston's two practices ahead of the trip to New Jersey.
"You don't replace one of your top two centers and you don't replace your top D man with an individual," Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said at practice Tuesday. "It's got to be a concerted effort by everybody to eat more minutes, and they've got to do the job."
New Jersey endured a 2-7-0 skid from Nov. 3-24 that coincided with Nico Hischier's absence. Starting with a 7-2 rout of Buffalo on Nov. 25, the Devils are 6-2-0 in their past eight games.
The Devils will play eight of their next 12 games at home and are returning from a 3-1-0 Western trip on which they scored 13 goals. New Jersey won the first three games but was unable to sweep the trip when it was handed a 4-1 loss by the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday.
Jesper Bratt, who scored the lone goal after the Devils fell behind Edmonton 3-0, finished with four goals on the trip. Jack Hughes went scoreless in the final three games of the trip after getting a goal in each of his previous four games.
"I think the schedule got us a little bit, we didn't have quite the energy," Devils coach Lindy Ruff said. "I think we missed the net a few times, we didn't funnel pucks when we had opportunities."
New Jersey also played without former Bruin Erik Haula due to an upper-body injury. Haula, who has missed five games so far, practiced Tuesday and could be available Wednesday.
The Bruins have won the past six meetings and are 8-0-1 in the past nine.
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