The Penguins aim to shake off their early-season rust on Wednesday night against the Boston Bruins. The Pens and Bruins both have 15 points, but Boston has played four fewer games, and is currently at 7-3-1. The Bruins are led by veteran goalie Tim Thomas, who currently is undefeated and has a 1.05 goals against average and a .967 save percentage, so if he plays, the Pens might into trouble if they dig themselves early holes, as they've been prone to do so. (Brent Johnson is likely to start, however.)
The parallels between the Bruins' goalie situation and the Pens' only go so far, but they're interesting - Thomas is Boston's Brent Johnson, and Tuukka Rask is their Marc-Andre Fleury. Rask hasn't been nearly as frustrating as Fleury, but he's the young goalie who has been outperformed by the veteran, despite a strong performance by Rask against the Blues on Saturday. (The Bruins could end up trading Thomas as a way of opening more playing time for Rask.)
Another storyline for tonight's game is that the hard shot to the head that the Pens' Matt Cooke's dealt the Bruins' Marc Savard last season. Savard is still struggling with the aftermath of that hit, and coincidentally, his replacement David Krejci is also now out with a concussion.