Canadiens head coach Michel Therrien isn’t afraid to tinker with his lines during the playoffs, and that will be evident Tuesday night in Montreal.
The Habs are going with their third different lineup in three games against the Boston Bruins, as the teams play the third game of their second-round Stanley Cup playoff series.
Therrien made one change before Game 2 in Boston, inserting Michael Bournival in the place of Travis Moen. There are even more changes for Game 3 at Bell Centre, as both Moen and defenseman Douglas Murray enter the fray. Moen is expected to replace veteran winger Brandon Prust, while Murray will take the place of Francis Bouillon.
Murray gives the Habs more strength and size on the blue line. The hulking Murray, at 6-foot-3 and 240 pounds, has seven inches and 46 pounds on the much smaller Bouillon. However, Murray is one of the slowest skaters in the NHL. So while Murray should do a better job of clearing bodies in front of the Montreal net, if the Bruins can exploit his lack of foot speed, that could be bad news for the Canadiens.
On the other side, the Bruins will go with the same lineup they featured in Game 2. That means both forward Jordan Caron and defenseman Andrej Meszaros will play in place of both Justin Florek and Matt Bartkowski, respectively.
Here are the projected lines and defensive pairings for the Bruins and Canadiens for Game 3.
Bruins
Milan Lucic — David Krejci — Jarome Iginla
Brad Marchand — Patrice Bergeron — Reilly Smith
Daniel Paille — Carl Soderberg — Loui Eriksson
Jordan Caron — Gregory Campbell — Shawn Thornton
Zdeno Chara — Dougie Hamilton
Andrej Meszaros — Johnny Boychuk
Torey Krug — Kevan Miller
Canadiens
Max Pacioretty — David Desharnais — Thomas Vanek
Rene Bourque — Lars Eller — Brian Gionta
Michael Bournival — Tomas Plekanec — Brendan Gallagher
Travis Moen — Danny Briere — Dale Weise
Josh Gorges — P.K. Subban
Andrei Markov — Alexei Emelin
Douglas Murray — Mike Weaver
