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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?