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

The Bruins look to make it seven straight wins when they play the Lightning on Thursday night.

Boston is coming off a hard-fought win over the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday, while Tampa Bay has lost two of its last three games.

The Bruins are 2-0-0 against Tampa Bay this season and their win on Nov. 29 included a strong performance in the third period — something fans have grown used to seeing this season.

As for Boston’s lines, head coach Jim Montgomery is shuffling things up a little bit. Craig Smith will return to the third line after spending time with Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand on the top line. He’ll play left wing while Trent Frederic will move to the right side of Charlie Coyle.

Taylor Hall will move to the top line and play right wing, a position he’s not used to playing but he has seen time there before.

Linus Ullmark will be between the pipes for the Bruins.

Puck drop from Amalie Arena is set for 7 p.m. ET. You can catch all the action beginning at 6 p.m. on NESN.

Here are the projected lines and defense pairings for both Bruins-Lightning.

BOSTON BRUINS (38-5-4)
Brad Marchand–Patrice Bergeron–Taylor Hall
Pavel Zacha–David Krejci–David Pastrnak
Trent Frederic–Charlie Coyle–Craig Smith
Nick Foligno–Joona Koppanen–A.J. Greer

Matt Grzelcyk–Charlie McAvoy
Hampus Lindholm–Brandon Carlo
Derek Forbort–Connor Clifton

Linus Ullmark

TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING (30-15-1)
Steven Stamkos–Brayden Point–Nikita Kucherov
Brandon Hagel–Anthony Cirelli–Alex Killorn
Vladislav Namestnikov–Nick Paul–Ross Colton
Pat Maroon–Pierre-Edouard Bellemare–Corey Perry

Victor Hedman–Zach Bogosian
Mikhail Sergachev–Nick Perbix
Ian Cole–Erik Cernak

Andrei Vasilevskiy