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

The Boston Bruins look to get back in the win column Thursday night when they take on the New York Islanders.

Boston is coming off an entertaining 2-1 shootout loss to the New York Rangers, while the Isles have lost three straight.

The Bruins will get some reinforcement back in Patrice Bergeron, who missed the last three games with a head laceration. He’ll man his normal first-line center position between Taylor Hall and David Pastrnak while Brad Marchand serves his fourth of a six-game suspension.

Erik Haula, who spent time on the top line in Tuesday’s loss, will go back to the third line, meaning Jack Studnicka is the odd man out. Head coach Bruce Cassidy understandably will keep Charlie Coyle, Craig Smith and Trent Frederic together as the de facto second line, while Connor Clifton will sit with Urho Vaakanainen slotting back into the lineup. Linus Ullmark will start between the pipes, opposite of Ilya Sorokin.

NESN will air Bruins versus Islanders in full, with pregame coverage starting at 6 p.m. ET. Puck drop from UBS Arena is scheduled for 7 p.m. ET.

Here are the projected lines and defense pairings for both teams:

BOSTON BRUINS (27-16-4)
Taylor Hall–Patrice Bergeron–David Pastrnak
Trent Frederic–Charlie Coyle–Craig Smith
Jake DeBrusk–Erik Haula–Nick Foligno
Anton Blidh–Tomas Nosek–Curtis Lazar

Mike Reilly–Charlie McAvoy
Matt Grzelcyk–Brandon Carlo
Derek Forbort–Urho Vaakanainen

Linus Ullmark

NEW YORK ISLANDERS (17-20-6)
Anders Lee–Mathew Barzal–Kyle Palmieri
Kieffer Bellows–Brock Nelson–Anthony Beauvillier
Zach Parise–Jean-Gabriel Pageau–Oliver Wahlstrom
Matt Martin–Casey Czikas–Cal Clutterbuck

Adam Pelech–Scott Mayfield
Zdeno Chara–Noah Dobson
Sebastian Aho–Ryan Pulock

Ilya Sorokin

These projected lines and defensive pairings are presented by Berkshire Bank, the official bank of NESN’s Boston Bruins coverage.