After getting back in the win column Tuesday, the Boston Bruins are looking to keep things rolling Thursday when they face the Penguins in the first of two straight games against Pittsburgh at TD Garden.
Boston won’t make any changes to its skaters from Tuesday’s game. There was a distant possibility that Sean Kuraly, who was cleared off the COVID-19 list Wednesday, might come back, but he hasn’t been able to skate much so the Bruins elected to keep him out.
As a result, the Bruins are going to keep the young-blood fourth line of Anton Blidh, Trent Frederic and Karson Kuhlman together, with Anders Bjork and Zach Senyshyn flanking Charlie Coyle on the third line.
Jeremy Lauzon is expected to stay up on the top defensive pairing with Charlie McAvoy, thus keeping the Matt Grzelcyk-Brandon Carlo and Jakub Zboril-Connor Clifton duos in tact.
Dan Vladar will be in net for the Bruins, with Jaroslav Halak backing him up. Casey DeSmith likely will be in net for the Penguins.
Here are the projected lineups for Bruins-Penguins.
BOSTON BRUINS (18-9-5)
Brad Marchand–Patrice Bergeron–David Pastrnak
Nick Ritchie–David Krejci–Craig Smith
Anders Bjork–Charlie Coyle–Zach Senyshyn
Anton Blidh–Trent Frederic–Karson Kuhlman
Jeremy Lauzon–Charlie McAvoy
Matt Grzelcyk–Brandon Carlo
Jakub Zboril–Connor Clifton
Dan Vladar
PITTSBURGH PENGUINS (23-11-2)
Jake Guentzel–Sidney Crosby–Bryan Rust
Jason Zucker–Jared McCann–Evan Rodrigues
Zach Aston-Reese–Frederick Gaudreau–Brandon Tanev
Sam Lafferty–Mark Jankowski–Anthony Angello
Brian Dumoulin–Kris Letang
Mike Matheson–Cody Ceci
Marcus Pettersson–John Marino
Casey DeSmith
