The Boston Bruins are having problems finding the back of the net, and that was very evident during their first two games of their four-game west coast trip. The B’s started off with a 3-2 loss in Anaheim on Monday night. Twenty-four hours later, they left Southern California without a single point when the defending Stanley Cup Champion Los Angeles Kings, led by Jonathan Quick, pitched a 2-0 shutout.

In the last five games, the B’s have tallied just six goals. Their schedule doesn’t get any easier tonight as they head to the Bay Area to face the San Jose Sharks, winners of two straight.

Here is your complete Bruins-Sharks preview

Time: 10:30 PM
TV/Radio: NESN, 98.5 The Sports Hub
Records: Bruins 14-11-1, 29 points/ Sharks 12-10-4, 28 points
Location: SAP Center

Bruins’ projected lines

Brad Marchand-Patrice Bergeron-David Pastrnak
Milan Lucic-Carl Soderberg-Loui Eriksson
Matt Fraser-Chris Kelly-Reilly Smith
Daniel Paille-Gregory Campbell-Simon Gagne

Dennis Seidenberg-Dougie Hamilton
Matt Bartkowski-Kevan Miller
Torey Krug-Zach Trotman

Tuukka Rask
Niklas Svedberg

Sharks’ projected lines

Tomas Hertl-Joe Thornton-Joe Pavelski
Patrick Marleau-Logan Couture-Tommy Wingels
Tyler Kennedy-James Sheppard-Matthew Nieto
Mike Brown-Andrew Desjardins-John Scott

Justin Braun-Marc-Edouard Vlasic
Brent Burns-Brenden Dillon
Scott Hannan-Matt Irwin

Antti Niemi
Alex Stalock

Who to watch for Bruins: Patrice Bergeron

To put it bluntly, this hasn’t been any ordinary season for the Black and Gold. The same can be said for Patrice Bergeron.

Bergeron continues to excel at the dot having won slightly over 57 percent of his draws. He still is a leader, he’s still reliable and he can still deliver. But that doesn’t leave out some other statistics that are not something B’s fans are not accustomed to seeing from Bergeron, including his minus-3 rating, his shooting percentage of 6.6, and his 24 penalty minutes.

With David Krejci still on the shelf, Bergeron is often looked as the primary scoring option. The two-time Selke winner is still playing well defensively, but after going without a point in five straight games, the Bruins would love for him to break out of his slump, and tonight would be a pretty good night to do that.

Who to watch for Sharks: Logan Couture

There was some question whether or not Couture would lace up the skates after an inadvertent hit to the head by Michael Raffl during Tuesday’s Sharks-Flyers matchup. The 2007 first round pick did lace up the skates during San Jose’s morning skate indicating that he could suit up against the Black and Gold tonight.

With 22 points (10 goals, 12 assists) in 26 games, Couture leads the Sharks in scoring. He has points in five of his last six games – including points in two straight contests – tallying two goals and four assists, while also firing 23 shots on goal in that span.

(If anything, this is a small, and painful, reminder to Bruins fans that Zach Hamill was drafted one spot ahead of Couture in the 2007 NHL Draft.)

Defensively, the Bruins haven’t played that poorly during the first two games of the west coast trip. But they’ll have another tall task in front of them against Couture, Joe Thornton and company. Limiting Couture’s chances would only help the cause, however, if they want to get out of the “Shark Tank” with two points.

Game Day Edge: Score first and hold on to the lead

Good things usually happen when the Bruins – or any other team in the NHL – score first. That hasn’t happened often for the Black and Gold as they’ve only broke the ice 11 times in their 29 games.

The Bruins are 7-4-0 when they light the lamp first, but the last time they scored goal No. 1, they let their foot off the gas pedal just a little bit as the high-powered Ducks took advantage on the first game of the road trip.

The Sharks are just 3-6-1 when allowing the first goal. Safe to say that the Bruins would be in a good position to come out with a win if the light the lamp first, but they’ll need to keep the pressure on and not ease up the rest of the way.

Game Day video Your’s truly discusses the impact of the Tyler Seguin trade a year and a half later on this week’s edition of Bruins Daily TV.