The Bruins will hit the ice at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto tonight to take on the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Bruins will try to move towards locking up a playoff spot in the East and improve the value of the draft picks that were once owned by the Leafs. The B's are coming off a 1-0 shutout loss to the Florida Panthers on Thursday night. The Leafs were also in action on Thursday night, as they downed the Buffalo Sabres 4-2 at the ACC.
Injury Report
Notes:
- Mark Recchi called out some of his teammates after Thursday night's game:
"We had a lot of good chances and we just didn’t score. I mean, we can’t ask for much more, effort-wise. I still don’t think we had 20 guys tonight, but you know, the guys that were going were generating a lot of opportunities and you got to put those in. We need – like I said, this time of year, you need 20 guys, regardless, so that’s a little bit of a disappointment, but we definitely controlled the game and played the right way and we should have won this one."
"When you lose. You know, in a game like this, if you have 20 guys, we don’t lose, and we still miss. [In] New Jersey, we had 20 guys, and we win. It’s no secret this time of year. The teams that have guys that are – and we talked about this after the last game – you might not feel good, but this time of year, chances are you don’t feel great but, you know, you have to dig deep down and do it for your teammates, do it for yourself. You have to find ways. If you’re a goal scorer and you’re not scoring goals, you got to be physical; and you got to play great defensively, and if you’re a physical guy, then you know, you got to chip in at times, so there’s a whole bunch of factors that play into this and I think we have to, with five games remaining, I think we shouldn’t have to be talking about it, but the results are there. [If] We don’t have 20 guys, we don’t win, and [if] we do, we win."
- Toronto has signed Phillippe Paradis of the QMJHL to a professional contract.
- Claude Julien shuffled lines in practice on Friday:
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Milan Lucic
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Patrice Bergeron
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Mark Recchi
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Marco Sturm
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David Krejci
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Miroslav Satan
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Brad Marchand
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Vladimir Sobotka
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Blake Wheeler
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Daniel Paille
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Begin/Whitfield
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Ryder/Thornton
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Zdeno Chara
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Dennis Seidenberg
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Mark Stuart
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Dennis Wideman
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Matt Hunwick
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Johnny Boychuk
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Joe Haggerty summed up the line changes best on CSNNE.com:
"The Bruins coach has relieved David Krejci of the pair of Gucci luggage bags otherwise known as Michael Ryder and Blake Wheeler, moving him onto a line with Marco Sturm on his left and Miro Satan on his right – a pair of finishers that can maximize the kind of quality two-way play that Krejci has been consistently producing since the Olympic break."
- Hopefully NESN isn't trying to bill this as "Kessel-Mania 6".
- Joe Colborne had 2 assists in his pro debut on Friday night for the Providence Bruins. The Baby B's beat the Worcester Sharks 3-1 .
- The Bruins need to take advantage of power play opportunities. The Leafs own the worst PK in the NHL at 73.9%.
- For more on tonight's game, check out Pension Plan Puppets.
- The game starts at 7:00 and will air on NESN and CBC's Hockey Night in Canada. Public Skate open thread starts at 6:30.
Today's Obligatory Embarrassing Leafs Fan Video