BOSTON — The Tampa Bay Lightning are one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference, but they have been hit with some adversity after losing multiple players to injury in Tuesday night’s win over the Montreal Canadiens.
Tampa Bay will need some of its depth players to take on a larger role with three regulars (forwards Cedric Paquette and Ondrej Palat and defenseman Braydon Coburn) out of the lineup for Thursday night’s game against the Boston Bruins at TD Garden.
“This is a time for other guys to step up and shine,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “Here you go now, you’ve got the stage.”
Mike Angelidis, 29, was recalled by the Lightning from the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch and is expected to play at left wing on the fourth line.
The Bruins likely won’t make any changes to their lineup to start Thursday’s game. Boston practiced Wednesday and used the same lines and pairings from Tuesday’s 3-1 win over the Ottawa Senators.
Tuukka Rask (Boston) and Ben Bishop (Tampa Bay) are expected to start in net.
Here are the projected lineups for both teams:
BOSTON BRUINS (34-22-10, fourth in Atlantic)
Brad Marchand-Patrice Bergeron-Reilly Smith
Milan Lucic-Ryan Spooner-David Pastrnak
Chris Kelly-Carl Soderberg-Loui Eriksson
Daniel Paille-Gregory Campbell-Maxime Talbot/Brian Ferlin
Zdeno Chara-Dougie Hamilton
Matt Bartkowski-Dennis Seidenberg
Torey Krug-Adam McQuaid
Tuukka Rask
TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING (42-20-6, second in Atlantic)
Alex Killorn-Steven Stamkos-Ryan Callahan
Jonathan Drouin-Tyler Johnson-Nikita Kucherov
Brenden Morrow-Valtteri Filppula-J.T. Brown
Mike Angelidis-Brian Boyle-Vladislav Namestnikov
Anton Stralman-Victor Hedman
Nikita Nesterov-Jason Garrison
Andrej Sustr-Mark Barberio
Ben Bishop
Thumbnail photo via Greg M. Cooper/USA TODAY Sports Images
