Bruins coach Claude Julien has had to do a balancing act with his defensive pairs this season, as a few of his blueliners have either missed time or looked like they might have to miss time with injuries.
The latest development in that regard is the fact that Adam McQuaid is out indefinitely. The big D-man reaggravated a groin injury at some point, it’s unsure when, and he did not make the trip to Montreal for the team’s game against the Canadiens. With McQuaid out, it looks like Matt Bartkowski will return to the Boston lineup. Bartkowski replaced McQuaid recently when McQuaid missed eight games with the lower-body injury.
The good news for the B’s is that Torey Krug won’t miss any time after dealing with something earlier in the week that caused him to miss practice Tuesday. He was back in practice Wednesday and was skating in the team’s warmup prior to the game against Montreal.
Other than that, the lineup appears to be the same for the Bruins.
Here are the rest of the projected lines for the B’s and Habs for Thursday’s game.
Bruins (18-7-2, 38 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 — Johnny Boychuk
Dennis Seidenberg — Dougie Hamilton
Torey Krug — Matt Bartkowski
Canadiens (17-9-3, 37 points)
Max Pacioretty — David Desharnais — Brendan Gallagher
Danny Briere — Tomas Plekanec — Brian Gionta
Alex Galchenyuk — Lars Eller — Brandon Prust
Travis Moen — Michael Bournival — George Parros
Andrei Markov — P.K. Subban
Josh Gorges — Alexei Emelin
Douglas Murray — Raphael Diaz
