BOSTON — When the Bruins announced that Loui Eriksson would miss Tuesday’s game against Florida, the speculation began. It’s not often that a seemingly healthy player gets scratched with a “minor issue” less than 24 hours before the trade deadline.
The deadline came and went, however, and Boston general manager Peter Chiarelli revealed Wednesday after the deadline that Eriksson had been suffering from a heel infection. Further conspiracy theories aside, the Bruins winger will be back in the Boston lineup against the Washington Capitals on Thursday night.
The Caps will be featuring a much different lineup than the one they displayed when these two teams met than a less week ago on March 1. The biggest change is the addition of Dustin Penner. The Caps acquired the winger from the Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday before the deadline. Penner scored 13 goals and added 19 assists with the Ducks this season.
Washington will be without two key players, though. Both John Erskine (upper-body) and Brooks Laich (lower-body) are out with injuries. They’ll be replaced in the lineup by Cam Schilling and Chris Brown, respectively. Both players were recalled prior to the game.
The Bruins acquired Andrej Meszaros and Corey Potter on Wednesday, but both players will be scratches against the Capitals.
Below are the lines and projected defensive pairings for Thursday’s Bruins-Capitals game.
Bruins
Milan Lucic — David Krejci — Jarome Iginla
Brad Marchand — Patrice Bergeron — Reilly Smith
Chris Kelly — Carl Soderberg — Loui Eriksson
Daniel Paille — Gregory Campbell — Shawn Thornton
Zdeno Chara — Dougie Hamilton
Johnny Boychuk — Matt Bartkowski
Torey Krug — Kevan Miller
Capitals
Chris Brown — Nicklas Backstrom — Alex Ovechkin
Dustin Penner — Marcus Johansson — Troy Brouwer
Jason Chimera — Eric Fehr — Joel Ward
Ryan Stoa — Jay Beagle — Tom Wilson
Karl Alzner — John Carlson
Jack Hillen — Mike Green
Cam Schilling — Connor Carrick
