Bruins-Maple Leafs Game 2: Projected Lines, Defensive Pairings

The Bruins and the Maple Leafs will meet for Game 2 of their first-round Stanley Cup playoff series Monday night at TD Garden.

The big question mark for Boston coming off Saturday’s Game 1 win was the starting goaltender for the second tilt of the best-of-seven set. Jeremy Swayman was excellent in the opener and Jim Montgomery admitted Monday it would be “hard to go away” from the fourth-year veteran. That said, the 2024 All-Star hasn’t played consecutive games since February.

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Whoever starts in net for the Bruins will likely play behind the same lines and pairings used Saturday. Derek Forbort was back with Boston on Monday morning, but Montgomery made it clear the veteran defenseman was not an option for Game 2.

Speaking of spectators, William Nylander is expected to be out of action for Toronto again. According to TSN’s Mark Masters, Nylander did not take line rushes at morning skate, thus indicating he won’t be available for game action. Masters also reported Ilya Samsonov did “his usual starting routine” Monday morning, so he should be in net again for the visitors after allowing five goals two days ago.

Here are the projected lines and defensive pairings for Bruins-Maple Leafs Game 2:

BRUINS (1-0)
Danton Heinen–Pavel Zacha–David Pastrnak
Brad Marchand–Charlie Coyle–Jake DeBrusk
Jakub Lauko–Morgan Geekie– Trent Frederic
JohnBeecher–Jesper Boqvist–Pat Maroon

Hampus Lindholm–Charlie McAvoy
Matt Grzelcyk–Brandon Carlo
Kevin Shattenkirk–Andrew Peeke

Linus Ullmark/Jeremy Swayman

MAPLE LEAFS (0-1)
Tyler Bertuzzi–Auston Matthews–Max Domi
Matthew Knies –John Tavares–Mitch Marner
Nicholas Robertson–Pontus Holmberg–Calle Jarnkrok
Connor Dewar–David Kampf–Ryan Reaves

Morgan Rielly–Ilya Lyubushkin
Simon Benoit–Jake McCabe
Joel Edmundson–Timothy Liljegren

Ilya Samsonov