The Boston Bruins’ proverbial back is against the wall.
After the B’s claimed Game 1 of their second-round Stanley Cup playoff series, the Tampa Bay Lightning rolled off three straight wins, with the most recent being an overtime victory in Game 4 at TD Garden to go ahead 3-1. Now, the Bolts will try to finish off their Atlantic Division rival in Game 5 and move on to the Eastern Conference final.
In Game 4, Boston lost arguably its most important offensive defenseman in Torey Krug, who will be out the remainder of the series. In his place, the Bruins will slot in Nick Holden on the third pairing with Adam McQuaid. As a result, Matt Grzelcyk will slide up to the second pairing and skate with longtime partner Kevan Miller.
The makeup of the Bruins’ third line is a bit up in the air, as head coach Bruce Cassidy didn’t indicate how it would look after scratching Riley Nash for Brian Gionta and Danton Heinen for Ryan Donato in Game 4.
Tuukka Rask (Boston) and Andrei Vasilevskiy (Tampa Bay) will start in net.
Here are the projected lineups for both teams:
BOSTON BRUINS (1-3)
Brad Marchand–Patrice Bergeron–David Pastrnak
Ryan Donato–David Krejci–Rick Nash
Jake DeBrusk–Sean Kuraly–David Backes
Tim Schaller–Riley Nash–Noel Acciari
Zdeno Chara–Charlie McAvoy
Matt Grzelcyk–Kevan Miller
Nick Holden–Adam McQuaid
Tuukka Rask
TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING (3-1)
J.T. Miller–Steven Stamkos–Nikita Kucherov
Ondrej Palat–Brayden Point–Tyler Johnson
Alex Killorn–Anthony Cirelli–Yanni Gourde
Chris Kunitz–Cedric Paquette–Ryan Callahan
Victor Hedman–Dan Girardi
Ryan McDonagh–Anton Stralman
Braydon Coburn–Mikhail Sergachev
Andrei Vasilevskiy
