BOSTON –When the Bruins and Penguins did battle a couple of weeks ago in Boston, Pittsburgh forward Evgeni Malkin was one of the best players on the ice. Luckily for the B’s, Malkin won’t be anywhere near the TD Garden ice on Saturday night.
Malkin didn’t make the trip to Boston and will miss his second consecutive game with an undisclosed injury. The Penguins didn’t have him Thursday night against arguably the league’s best team, the San Jose Sharks. It didn’t make much difference, though, as the Pens rolled over the Sharks with a 5-1 win. Still, Malkin has been one of the hottest players after a slow start to the season, and that certainly should make a difference against a tough Bruins team.
However, the Bruins are also shorthanded. They’ll be without defensemen Adam McQuaid and Johnny Boychuk, as that duo will miss both Saturday and Sunday’s games. That means Kevan Miller and Matt Bartkowski will join the Bruins lineup for the weekend games at least.
Here are the rest of the projected lines.
Bruins
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
Dennis Seidenberg — Matt Bartkowski
Torey Krug — Kevan Miller
Penguins
Chris Kunitz — Sidney Crosby — Joe Vitale
Jayson Megna — Jussi Jokinen — James Neal
Chris Conner — Brandon Sutter — Zach Sill
Craig Adams — Harry Zolnercyzk — Chuck Kobasew
Deryk Engelland — BRooks Orpik
Olli Maatta — Kris Letang
Matt Niskanen — Simon Despres
