The Bruins return to TD Garden ice for the first time since winning the Stanley Cup tonight as they host the New York Islanders in the first home preseason game of the year.
The Isles aren't in town this morning, but the Bruins are, and they took the ice for a long morning session before tonight's game.
After the jump, impressions from morning skate and the probable lines for tonight:
Alexander Khoklachev may be small, but the kid's got speed in bunches and fantastic hands to boot. If he can put on a few pounds, he's going to be a force in a couple seasons for the Black and Gold.
Tim Thomas isn't taking anything lightly. He let some pucks in (that happens in practice from time to time), but he also made a number of blue-collar stops, collapsing on second and third rebounds to protect the net.
Milan Lucic and David Krejci haven't lost a step. The two connected a couple of times during drills in impressive fashion, and it stands to reason that they'll be even better with Nathan Horton back on the wing. In the mean time, having Jared Knight on the line will be interesting tonight - Knight is an awfully hard worker and has a nose for the net, and he deserves the first-line minutes he'll get.
The battle for seventh defenseman between Steven Kampfer and Matt Bartkowski is going to be a close one. Take that however you want.
Milan Lucic - David Krejci - Jared Knight
Rich Peverley - Patrice Bergeron - Brad Marchand
Jamie Arniel - Zach Hamill - Daniel Paille
Benoit Pouliot - Alexander Khoklachev - Lane MacDermid
Zdeno Chara - Steven Kampfer
Matt Bartkowski - Johnny Boychuk
Dennis Seidenberg - Zach McKelvie
Tim Thomas
Anton Khudobin
