The Bruins have been one of the league’s stingiest teams when it comes to goals allowed. Much of that stems from Tuukka Rask‘s play as the Boston goalie has been arguably the league’s best goalie.
However, the system also plays a large role in that, and the B’s defensemen are a vital piece to that system of course. The real impressive part, though, is that the Bruins’ D-men have been so good despite some nagging injuries. Adam McQuaid has been out for almost two weeks, and now Dennis Seidenberg is expected miss up to a week, with no real timetable to confirm that.
Those injuries have overlapped, which means the Bruins must dip into the farm to fill one of the voids on the blue lines. That’s why Kevan Miller was called up on an emergency basis Wednesday, and it’s why he’ll be in the lineup Thursday night against the St. Louis Blues. It will be the NHL debut for the University of Vermont alum.
It’s a pretty tall task for Miller, who had a nice camp, to come in and play defense against a Blues team that has been among the NHL’s best teams in the first six weeks of the season.
Rask is expected to get the start for the Bruins, while Jaroslav Halak will likely get the start for St. Louis.
Here are the rest of the projected lines for both teams.
Bruins (14-6-1, 27 points)
Milan Lucic — David Krejci — Jarome Iginla
Brad Marchand — Patrice Bergeron — Loui Eriksson
Carl Soderberg — Chris Kelly — Reilly Smith
Daniel Paille — Gregory Campbell — Shawn Thornton
Zdeno Chara — Dougie Hamilton
Torey Krug — Kevan Miller
Matt Bartkowski — Johnny Boychuk
Blues (14-3-3, 31 points)
Alexander Steen — David Backes — T.J. Oshie
Jaden Schwartz — Vladimir Sobotka — Vladimir Tarasenko
Brenden Morrow — Derek Roy — Chris Stewart
Maxim Lapierre — Magnus Paajarvi — Ryan Reaves
Barret Jackman — Kevin Shattenkirk
Jay Bouwmeester — Alex Pietrangelo
Ian Cole — Roman Polak
