Thursday will be a special night for David Warsofsky. That’s because the Bruins defenseman will be making his NHL debut for his hometown team.
The Marshfield, Mass., native, who played his college hockey at Boston University, will don the spoked-B for the first time in the NHL when the Bruins take on the Buffalo Sabres in Buffalo. Warsofsky was called up Wednesday in advance of the club’s trip to Buffalo. He was called up in part because Kevan Miller had to return to Providence before reaching 10 NHL games. Had Miller reached the 10-game mark, he would have had to clear waivers upon being sent down.
Warsofsky has also earned the opportunity as well. He’s been the Providence Bruins’ best defenseman this season and has posted 2-14-16 totals in 26 games this season with the P-Bruins. It’s expected that Warsofsky will be paired with Matt Bartkowski on Thursday against the Sabres.
Bruins backup goalie Chad Johnson is expected to start in net for Boston opposite Buffalo’s Ryan Miller.
Here are the rest of the projected lines for both teams.
Bruins (23-9-2, 48 points)
Milan Lucic — David Krejci — Jarome Iginla
Brad Marchand — Patrice Bergeron — Reilly Smith
Carl Soderberg — Ryan Spooner — Matt Fraser
Jordan Caron — Daniel Paille — Nick Johnson
Zdeno Chara — Johnny Boychuk
Dennis Seidenberg — Torey Krug
Matt Bartkowski — David Warsofsky
Sabres (8-23-3, 19 points)
Matt Moulson — Cody Hodgson — Zemgus Girgensons
Ville Leino — Tyler Ennis — Matt D’Agostini
Steve Ott — Marcus Foligno — Drew Stafford
Brian Flynn — Kevin Porter — Matt Ellis
Henrik Tallinder — Tyler Myers
Christian Erhoff — Jamie McBain
Alexander Sulzer — Mike Weber
Photo via Twitter/@NHLBruins
