The Bruins’ schedule hasn’t exactly been friendly to backup goalie Chad Johnson, who has only gotten a couple of starts through the first month and a half of the season. It appears, however, he’ll get his third start of the season Thursday night.
Johnson was the first goalie off the ice Thursday at the Bruins’ morning skate, which indicates he’s likely to get the start between the pipes for Boston against the Columbus Blue Jackets. It makes sense to go with Johnson against the struggling Blue Jackets, as the Bruins are about to play a back-to-back set with a trip to Ottawa on Friday night looming.
Johnson is 1-1-o on the season in his two starts, with his first appearance coming against Buffalo on Oct. 23 and his most recent start coming on Long Island against the Islanders on Nov. 2. Thursday night would mark Johnson’s first career start against Columbus.
In other Bruins lineup news, Adam McQuaid will miss another game with a lower-body injury he suffered Saturday night against Toronto. Boston coach Claude Julien said McQuaid rode the bike Thursday morning, but he’s still not yet ready to get back on the ice, so it could be a while before he’s back in game action.
Sergei Bobrovsky is expected to start for the Blue Jackets.
Here are the projected lines for Thursday night’s game.
Bruins (11-5-1, 23 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
Dennis Seidenberg — Torey Krug
Matt Bartkowski — Johnny Boychuk
Blue Jackets (6-10-1, 13 points)
R.J. Umberger — Artem Anisimov — Marian Gaborik
Brandon Dubinsky — Ryan Johansen — Cam Atkinson
Derek MacKenzie — Mark Letstu — Blake Comeau
Nick Foligno — Michael Chaput — Jared Boll
Jack Johnson — Fedor Tyutin
Ryan Murray — James Wisniewski
Nikita Nikitin — Daulton Prout
