Berkshire Bank Hockey Night In New England: Projected Bruins-Wild Lines, Pairings

The Boston Bruins are in Minnesota for a Thursday night matchup against the Wild as they look to avenge their worst loss of the season.

The Wild beat the B’s 5-0 at TD Garden last month, but since that defeat, Boston is 7-3-0 and up to second place in the Atlantic Division.

Bruins head coach Claude Julien told reporters David Pastrnak will not play against the Wild due to an undisclosed injury. That’s a sizable loss because Pastrnak leads the team with 10 goals. Boston will need more scoring production from its bottom-six forwards to help overcome the loss of Pastrnak.

Luckily for the B’s, one or two goals have been good enough to win with the way goalie Tuukka Rask has played of late. He ranks in the top five among all netminders in wins, save percentage and goals against average.

Here are the projected lineups for both teams.

BOSTON BRUINS (10-6-0)
Brad Marchand–Patrice Bergeron–Riley Nash
Ryan Spooner-David Krejci–David Backes
Matt Beleskey–Dominic Moore–Austin Czarnik
Jimmy Hayes–Tim Schaller–Sean Kuraly

Zdeno Chara–Brandon Carlo
Torey Krug–Adam McQuaid
John-Michael Liles–Joe Morrow

Tuukka Rask

MINNESOTA WILD (8-6-1)
Nino Niederreiter–Eric Staal–Charlie Coyle
Zach Parise–Mikko Koivu–Mikael Granlund
Jason Zucker–Erik Haula–Jason Pominville
Zack Mitchell–Tyler Graovac–Chris Stewart

Ryan Suter–Mathew Dumba
Jonas Brodin–Christian Folin
Mike Reilly–Jared Spurgeon

Devan Dubnyk

Thumbnail photo via Eric Bolte/USA TODAY Sports Images