The Bruins’ schedule hasn’t been ideal if you’re a backup goaltender, but B’s understudy Chad Johnson will get his first shot between the pipes on Wednesday in Buffalo.
Johnson has been named the Bruins’ starting goaltender for the first time all season, as an uneven season has allowed Tuukka Rask to start all of the team’s games up to this point. Wednesday marks the first of a back-to-back for the B’s, and with the high-powered San Jose Sharks waiting in Boston for a Thursday night matchup, it makes sense that Johnson goes Wednesday followed by Rask on Thursday.
It will be Johnson’s first start as a member of the Bruins. He’s also made stops in New York with the Rangers and with the Coyotes in Phoenix. Wednesday’s start will mark Johnson’s first appearance since April 18 of last season.
In other lineup notes, Carl Soderberg is expected to be back out on the Bruins’ third line after a nice performance in his season debut Saturday night, which means Jordan Caron will likely be a healthy scratch again. Once again, the defensive situation is up in the air heading into faceoff, which is slated for 8 p.m. from Buffalo.
Here are the rest of the projected lines.
Bruins (5-2-0, 10 points)
Milan Lucic — David Krejci — Jarome Iginla
Reilly Smith — Patrice Bergeron — Loui Eriksson
Carl Soderberg — Chris Kelly — Brad Marchand
Daniel Paille — Gregory Campbell — Shawn Thornton
Zdeno Chara — Johnny Boychuk
Dennis Seidenberg — Dougie Hamilton
Torey Krug — Adam McQuaid
Chad Johnson
Sabres (1-8-1, 3 points)
Thomas Vanek — Cody Hodgson — Drew Stafford
Marcus Foligno — Tyler Ennis — Steve Ott
Zegmus Girgensons — Johan Larsson — Brian Flynn
John Scott — Mikhail Grigorenko — Kevin Porter
Christian Erhoff — Mark Pysyk
Henrik Tallinder — Tyler Myers
Nikita Zadorov — Mike Weber
Ryan Miller
Photo via Instagram/@NHLBruins
