BOSTON — The Bruins and Montreal Canadiens will meet for the final time in the regular season Sunday night at TD Garden.
Montreal already has clinched the season series after winning the first three games, the last one a 2-0 victory in Boston on Nov. 22.
“It’s always a big game against them because, you know, wherever you go in Boston when the Habs are coming to town, it’s a big game, but we don’t really think of it as any bigger than usual,” Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask said.
“We try to approach it as any other game, but the fact is that we haven’t been able to beat them that many times in the past, and we have to change this because another fact is that we’re most likely going to play them in the playoffs this year, so have to learn to play against them.”
The Bruins haven’t confirmed who will start in net, but the likely choice is Rask, who made 39 saves on 40 shots in a 2-1 win over the New York Islanders on Saturday night.
B’s head coach Claude Julien switched up his right wingers again Saturday night, and he even demoted Reilly Smith to the fourth line and moved Daniel Paille up to the top-six alongside Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand. It’s unclear whether Julien will stick with the lines he used at the end of the Islanders game or go back to a more normal configuration.
The Canadiens are 7-3-0 in their last 10 games and defeated the New Jersey Devils 6-2 on Saturday night. They rank 22nd in goals scored per game and first in goals against average.
One interesting lineup note regarding Montreal is that Dale Weise, a bottom-six forward, has received top-line minutes of late and scored twice Saturday. Weise has one goal and one assist in two games versus the Bruins this campaign.
Here are the projected lineups for both teams:
BOSTON BRUINS (28-17-7, fourth in Atlantic)
Milan Lucic-David Krejci-Reilly Smith
Brad Marchand-Patrice Bergeron-Loui Eriksson
Chris Kelly-Carl Soderberg-David Pastrnak
Daniel Paille-Gregory Campbell-Craig Cunningham
Zdeno Chara-Dougie Hamilton
Dennis Seidenberg-Adam McQuaid
Torey Krug-Kevan Miller
Tuukka Rask
MONTREAL CANADIENS (33-15-3, third in Atlantic)
Max Pacioretty-David Desharnais-Dale Weise
Alex Galchenyuk-Tomas Plekanec-Brendan Gallagher
Jacob de la Rose-Lars Eller-Christian Thomas
Brandon Prust-Gabriel Dumont-Jiri Sekac
Andrei Markov-P.K. Subban
Nathan Beaulieu-Sergei Gonchar
Alexei Emelin-Tom Gilbert
Carey Price
Thumbnail photo via Bob DeChiara/USA TODAY Sports Images
