BOSTON — The Bruins are getting healthy, slowly but surely. The B’s are still battling a rash of injuries, but there’s progress, which is a nice change of pace for Boston.
Most notably is that defenseman Adam McQuaid is close to returning from a groin injury. The Boston blueliner won’t play Saturday night against Buffalo, but he’s a possibility for Monday night in Nashville, according to head coach Claude Julien. McQuaid is currently on injured reserve and hasn’t played since Nov. 30. He reaggravated the groin injury in that game and Julien has made a point to say the Bruins will take their time in getting him healthy.
Julien also offered good news on forward Daniel Paille and defenseman Dougie Hamilton. According to Julien, both players skated Saturday morning, which is obviously a good sign in their ongoing recoveries. For Hamilton, it was the first time he’s skated since suffering a lower-body injury in a game against Toronto on Dec. 8. Paille, on the other hand, appears to be progressing well after experience concussion-like symptoms following that same game against the Maple Leafs.
Here are the projected lines for Saturday’s game with the Sabres.
Bruins (23-10-2, 48 points)
Milan Lucic — David Krejci — Jarome Iginla
Brad Marchand — Patrice Bergeron — Reilly Smith
Carl Soderberg — Ryan Spooner — Matt Fraser
Jordan Caron — Gregory Campbell — Nick Johnson
Zdeno Chara — Torey Krug
Dennis Seidenberg — Matt Bartkowski
David Warsofsky — Johnny Boychuk
Sabres (9-23-3, 21 points)
Marcus Foligno — Brian Flynn — Matt D’Agostini
Matt Moulson — Tyler Ennis — Zemgus Girgensons
Steve Ott — Ville Leino — Drew Stafford
Linus Omark — Kevin Porter — Matt Ellis
Henrik Tallinder — Tyler Myers
Christian Erhoff — Alexander Sulzer
Jamie McBain — Mike Weber
