It seems like a friendly enough place.
The in-house entertainment uses a wholesome recording of Rick Flair screaming “Woo!” every time the home team scores. The press box offers a ridiculous array of petit fours, candy and snacks, and the supreme Italian food just across the way in the North End will leave you feeling sated and content before you ever enter the latest incarnation of the Garden.
Don’t let that fool you. For the Coyotes, TD Garden has been their personal house of horrors. Entering Saturday’s game, Arizona had lost seven straight games to the Bruins in Boston, getting outscored 30-9. Overall, the Coyotes are 3-13-1 at TD Garden and have not won there since the 2008-09 season.
The last time the Coyotes beat the Bruins when Boston was the home team is a fun trivia question. It came in Prague, Czechia in 2010 behind two goals from Czechia native Radim Vrbata. Since then, it has been a steady stream of misery.
“A big part of it is the Bruins had really good teams,” Vrbata said, ‘but yeah, we didn’t have much luck there even when we felt like we played well.”
In Dave Tippett’s second-to-last season as Coyotes coach, Boston waxed the Coyotes 6-0 at TD Garden. In Rick Tocchet’s first season as Coyotes coach, it was 6-1 Bruins. This will be André Tourigny’s first foray into TD Garden as Coyotes coach, but he has been here before as an assistant for the Colorado Avalanche and Ottawa Senators.
“The Bruins are a proud organization,” Tourigny said. “They like to display their character and their resilience. They are a reflection of their city. I love their tenacity.”
It’s not like the Coyotes have had success against the Bruins anywhere of late. They have lost 17 straight to Boston overall, but the Coyotes have been riding high lately, having scored 22 goals in their past three games with four straight wins overall. Nick Schmaltz has been a driving force behind that offensive output with 13 points in those four games.
The Coyotes might need more of that on Saturday. Boston is 8-2 in its past 10 games, 21-8-4 since the new year dawned, and looking like a nightmarish first-round opponent for one of the East’s elite teams if Boston remains in a wild card spot.
“It’s a tough environment,” Schmaltz said. “They always seem to buzz a little extra in their own building and they get good momentum from their crowd and they’ve got some very good players who make good plays.
“We’ve got to do a good job of weathering that storm early in the first 10 minutes or so and try to frustrate them a little bit and not give them too much.”
