Berkshire Bank Faceoff: Bruins Not Making Any Lineup Changes Against Lightning

It’s unknown when Boston Bruins defensemen Andrej Meszaros and Corey Potter will make their debuts with the B’s. Neither will make that debut on Saturday night against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Boston head coach Claude Julien revealed on Saturday morning that the Bruins lineup will be unchanged on Saturday when the Black and Gold square off with the Bolts at the Tampa Bay Times Forum. Meszaros and Potter will have to wait at least one more game before making their respective debuts with the Bruins after being acquired Wednesday.

It makes sense that Julien would go with the same lineup, too. Although they were taking on an uninspired Washington Capitals team, the Bruins were absolutely dominant in a 3-0 win on Thursday night. They were especially stingy defensively, as the Caps managed just 16 shots on goal in the Boston shutout win.

The Lightning will be without defenseman Radko Gudas on Saturday night. The heavy-hitting blueliner is currently out with a lower-body injury. Gudkas is sixth on the Lightning in ice time as he’s averaged 19:33 per game while totaling 2-14-16 totals as well as plus-5 rating.

Ben Bishop will start in goal for the Lightning. The Bruins had an optional morning skate, and it’s still unclear who will be in net against the Bolts. That will be revealed during pregame warmups.

Here are the projected lines and defense pairings for the Bruins-Lightning game on Saturday night.

Bruins (40-17-5, 85 points)

Milan Lucic — David Krejci — Jarome Iginla
Brad Marchand — Patrice Bergeron — Reilly Smith
Chris Kelly — Carl Soderberg — Loui Eriksson
Daniel Paille — Gregory Campbell — Daniel Paille

Zdeno Chara — Dougie Hamilton
Matt Bartkowski — Johnny Boychuk
Torey Krug — Kevan Miller

Lightning (34-24-5, 73 points)

Alex Killorn — Steven Stamkos — Teddy Purcell
Ondrej Palet — Valterri Filppula — Ryan Callahan
J.T. Brown — Tyler Johnson — Richard Pannik
Keith Aulie — Nate Thompson — Tom Pyatt

Victor Hedman — Sami Salo
Matt Carle — Mark Barberio
Eric Brewer — Mike Kostka