BOSTON — The Bruins will put their season-high five-game win streak on the line Saturday night at TD Garden against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
This is the last of three regular-season meetings between these teams and the only one in Boston.
The Bruins won 3-0 over the New York Rangers on Thursday night and didn’t play Friday. The Blue Jackets will play the Bruins in the second game of a back-to-back after losing 2-1 to the Rangers on Friday night at home.
It was Columbus’ fourth straight loss and fifth in seven games this month. The Blue Jackets need to turn their season around quickly or they will fail to reach the Stanley Cup playoffs for a second consecutive campaign. Columbus trails the Bruins and Rangers — the teams in the two wild card playoff spots — by 15 points.
Boston will be without top-six winger Brad Marchand against Columbus because of his two-game suspension for slew-footing Rangers center Derick Brassard on Thursday. Daniel Paille is expected to replace Marchand on the second line, which might give Jordan Caron an opportunity to enter the lineup on the fourth line.
Here are the projected lineups for both teams:
BOSTON BRUINSÂ (24-15-6, fourth in Atlantic)
Milan Lucic-David Krejci-David Pastrnak
Daniel Paille-Patrice Bergeron-Reilly Smith
Chris Kelly-Carl Soderberg-Loui Eriksson
Jordan Caron-Gregory Campbell-Craig Cunningham
Zdeno Chara-Dougie Hamilton
Dennis Seidenberg-Adam McQuaid
Torey Krug-Kevan Miller
Tuukka Rask
COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETSÂ (18-21-3, seventh in Metropolitan)
Scott Hartnell-Brandon Dubinsky-Josh Anderson
Nick Foligno-Ryan Johansen-Jeremy Morin
Matt Calvert-Alexander Wennberg-Cam Atkinson
Corey Tropp-Mark Letestu-Jared Boll
Jack Johnson-David Savard
Kevin Connauton-James Wisniewski
Dalton Prout-Fedor Tyutin
Curtis McElhinney
Thumbnail photo via Russell LaBounty/USA TODAY Sports Images
