Public Skate: Bruins (28-20-8) at Oilers (16-32-10)

Well folks, that wasn't good. Coming into tonight's game, the Bruins lead in the Wild Card race has shrunk to 2 points over the resurgent Florida Panthers. With the next two teams up from the Bruins being the Detroit Red Wings and Washington Capitals, both at 72 points, it's looking less and less likely that the Bruins can avoid the bear-cat-fight for the last spot in the East.

With the next three games coming against winning teams, including away tilts versus the St. Louis Blues and Chicago Blackhawks, this would be a good time to take advantage of an opponent that has all of 12 ROW this season.

Time: 10 PM, EST (set your alarm clocks for work tomorrow, people)

Location: Rexall Place

Opponent: Edmonton Oilers, Last Place, Western Conference

Lines:

Teddy Purcell - Ryan Nugent-Hopkins - Jordan Eberle

Ryan Hamilton - Derek Roy - Nail Yakupov

Benoit Pouliot - Anton Lander - Iiro Pakarinen

Matt Hendricks - Boyd Gordon - Matt Fraser

Defensive Pairings:

Andrew Ference - Jeff Petry

Oscar Klefbom - Justin Schultz

Martin Marincin - Mark Fayne

And In Net:

Ben Scrivens (starting)

Victor Fasth

Same old, same old for the Oilers. Plenty of talent up front that never seems to produce actual results (Taylor Hall being out doesn't help at all), no one you would actually want on a top pairing for defense, and goaltenders who, while they've shown flashes in the past, have been pretty terrible this season.

And For Your Boston Bruins:

Lines:

Brad Marchand - Patrice Bergeron - Loui Eriksson

Milan Lucic - David Krejci - Reilly Smith

Chris Kelly - Carl Soderberg - David Pastrnak

Danielle Paille - Gregory Campbell - Bam Bam Cunningham

Defensive Pairings:

Zdeno Chara - Dougie Hamilton

Dennis Seidenberg - Matt Bartkowski

Torey Krug - Adam McQuaid

And In Net:

Tuukka Rask

Niklas Svedberg

Malcolm Subban

There's a lot that's sort of up in the air here. For one, as previously mentioned, Claude's been shuffling RWs a bit, but it seems like we've at least settled on keeping Kelly-Soderberg-Pastrnak together. Those D-Pairings are my best guess, with the fact that Kevan Miller was injured against Calgary (and was already injured before that). And Claude hasn't confirmed whether or not tonight's the first start for Subban, yet.

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What's on tap, errybody?