The Boston Bruins have earned the right to rest their players, and they’ll apparently start that process in earnest Tuesday night.
The Bruins will take on the Minnesota Wild — and will do so without three of their regular players. Jarome Iginla and Kevan Miller will miss their second consecutive games, and they’ll be joined in the press box by first-line center David Krejci. He participated in the morning skate, so it appears his absence is strictly rest-related.
The absence of two top-line forwards makes things interesting on the Bruins’ lines. According to the Bruins’ pregame line rushes, defenseman Torey Krug actually was on the fourth line at left wing. Whether that actually happens in the game is yet to be seen, as the Bruins might just go with the seven D-men and rotate them on the blue line.
Tuukka Rask starts in net for the Bruins, and Ilya Bryzgalov does the same for the Wild.
Here are the rest of the projected lines and defensive pairings.
Bruins (53-18-7, 113 points)
Brad Marchand — Patrice Bergeron — Reilly Smith
Milan Lucic — Carl Soderberg — Loui Eriksson
Daniel Paille — Chris Kelly — Jordan Caron
Torey Krug — Gregory Campbell — Shawn Thornton
Zdeno Chara — Dougie Hamilton
Matt Bartkowski — Corey Potter
Andrej Meszaros — Dougie Hamilton
Wild (41-26-12, 93 points)
Zach Parise — Mikko Koivu — Charlie Coyle
Matt Moulson — Erik Haula — Jason Pominville
Matt Cooke — Kyle Brodziak — Justin Fontaine
Stephane Veilleux — Cody McCormick — Nino Niederreiter
Ryan Suter — Jared Spurgeon
Nate Prosser — Jonas Brodin
Jonathon Blum — Marco Scandella
