Game 37: Montreal Canadiens @ Boston Bruins

Start time: 7:00 PM EST / 4:00 PM PST
In the Canadiens region: TSN2 (English), RDS (French)
In the Penguins region: NESN
Streaming: ESPN+, RDS, TSN+

The Boston Bruins spent the days leading up to the 2025 trade deadline shipping out players. Charlie Coyle went to the Colorado Avalanche, The Toronto Maple Leafs acquired Brandon Carlo, and Brad Marchand, their acting captain, was traded to the Florida Panthers in what looked like a loud signal that the Bruins were entering a rebuild phase. There wasn’t much left of the roster save for David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy, who seemed destined for a 2025-26 season in which they had to carry the entire team on their backs.

Pastrnak is more than capable of keeping a team’s production respectable on his own, but the reason he’s been able to maintain a 100-point pace this season is because he has developed a new partnership. Morgan Geekie scored 33 goals last season while playing with Pastrnak, and this season is already up to 25, currently five back of Nathan MacKinnon in the Maurice Richard Trophy race. The assumption was that his hot start wouldn’t last all season long, especially considering he’s scoring on 27.2% of this shots, but the story was the same a year ago when he finished a 77-game campaign with a 22.0% conversion rate.

While far from the juggernaut they were during Patrice Bergeron’s peak, the Bruins also aren’t at the bottom of the Atlantic Division where many projections placed them ahead of the season. In the final game before the Christmas break, they have 41 points to sit just outside of a wild-card position, and two points back of the Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning for the second in the division.

Tale of the Tape

Canadiens
Statistics
Bruins

19-12-5
Record
20-16-1

47.9% (25th)
Expected-goal share
45.6% (29th)

3.19 (8th)
Goals per game
3.19 (9th)

3.31 (24th)
Goals against per game
3.22 (22nd)

25.8% (6th)
PP%
25.7% (7th)

77.6% (22nd)
PK%
79.6% (19th)

0-1-0
Head-to-Head Record
1-0-0

Cole Caufield (17)
Most goals
Morgan Geekie (25)

Nick Suzuki (30)
Most assists
David Pastrnak (25)

Nick Suzuki (40)
Most points
Morgan Geekie (39)

This was originally a game the Canadiens were planning to have Samuel Montembeault back from his conditioning stint for, but Jacob Fowler’s shutout performance on Saturday night made the decision for him to get another game an automatic one. Fowler hasn’t played the Bruins, but he has a lot of experience in the city after a two-year stay at Boston College. That career included a start at the Bruins’ home arena, TD Garden, in 2024 when he helped the club win the Hockey East title before going all the way to the National Championship Game.

Fowler played a role in the Canadiens having another successful end to the week, which has been about the norm in December. Montreal has amassed a 6-1-2 record in games played from Wednesday to Sunday this month, but, oddly, they’ve lost each game played on a Tuesday. Those games versus the Ottawa Senators, Tampa Bay Lightning, and Philadelphia Flyers were all lost in regulation by a combined score of 15-4, and have been some of the worst games the Habs have played all season.

To help them overcome their Tuesday scaries (and more importantly the injury to Jake Evans), Phillip Danault will be playing his first game since being acquired from the Los Angeles Kings just before the holiday trade freeze on Friday night. Martin St-Louis would have liked to have Evans to play the shutdown role versus Pastrnak and Geekie, but those duties may need to be shared between Danault and Nick Suzuki, even if Danault initially left the organization to seek a more offensive deployment. He’ll find that the current version of the team no longer relies on one line to do all of the work as his with Tomas Tatar and Brendan Gallagher used to in his first stint in Montreal. Even from defensive situations the Canadiens have the ability to create offence from several trios, and they will need that scoring depth to show up to battle the Bruins’ main forward duo.