Photo taken from NHL.com 
Photo taken from NHL.com.
The Bruins play the second game of their home-and-home with the rival Toronto Maple Leafs tonight at the TD Garden. Puck drop is set for 7:00 pm ET, and the game will be broadcast on NESN, ESPN+, TVAS, and TSN4. Here’s a look at tonight’s projected lineups.
Boston Bruins:
Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak
DeBrusk-Coyle-Ritchie
Bjork-Kuraly-Wagner
Heinen-Lindholm-Backes
Chara-McAvoy
Krug-Carlo
Grzelcyk-Clifton
Rask
Halak
These are the reported lines from Bruins morning skate. Krejci, Kuhlman, Nordstrom are all injured, and Krejci is apparently out for a while as he was placed on the injured reserve (IR) while Anders Bjork was called up. I normally do not comment on lines here, but I feel like it’s necessary today. Why Bjork is on the third line while Ritchie is on the second is completely beyond me. Also, why is Heinen on what is considered the fourth line? If Cassidy didn’t want Bjork on the second line, then Heinen has proven that he’s capable of playing well on his off-wing, so why not put him there? It makes no sense. Both Bjork and Heinen have top-six potential, and Heinen in particular has shown he’s capable of filling in there now, whereas Ritchie is undeniably a bottom-six player (at best). Granted, Cassidy obviously knows way more than I do about his team, because I just can’t see his logic with these lines right now. I can only assume that his plan is to do quite a bit of line-shuffling in game tonight and these lines are merely how they will start, because I can’t imagine this is going to give them the secondary scoring they need.
Toronto Maple Leafs:
Johnsson-Matthews-Nylander
Mikheyev-Kerfoot-Marner
Moore-Spezza-Kapanen
Timashov-Shore-Gauthier
Rielly-Ceci
Muzzin-Barrie
Marincin-Holl
Andersen
Hutchinson
The Leafs did not have a morning skate today as they played last night, so these are the lines from last night. I would not expect much, if anything, to change, as their injured players will still be out. I find it very interesting that Andersen started in net last night against Columbus, who are a far lesser team than the Bruins. I’m sure he’ll start again tonight, as if they don’t trust Hutchinson against Columbus why would they trust him against a better team, plus these two teams are huge rivals. I’m just saying it’s surprising they are playing him in back to back games and probably not their smartest option for the long term. But, I could be wrong, and I’ll update this if I find out differently.
The Bruins took the Leafs to overtime Saturday night despite a lot of turnovers and overall sloppy play at times, so I believe they’ll win this game. The Leafs are on the second half of a back-to-back and have played three games in the past four days, whereas the Bruins have had two full days between games, so they’re certainly the more rested team. They’ve had more time to practice and go over video because of this, so they should also be much better prepared. It’s also Tuukka’s 500th career start tonight (and it’s against the team that drafted him) which is about equivalent to 1,000 games as a player, so he should play even better than usual tonight and the rest of the team will be playing for him as well, as no one wants to lose or see a teammate lose a big milestone game like that. So, provided the Bruins are sharp and as ready as they should be, they should easily win this game tonight. If they play terribly, which is highly unlikely, then obviously it gets tougher and less likely that they win, but I can’t see that happening because of everything I mentioned above and more. I’ll be live tweeting the game over at PUCKerUp Boston tonight, so feel free to come hang out with me there! I will also likely have a postgame done for here, so keep an eye out for that later!
Hockey Addict 