Bruins at Stars: Probable Lines, D-Pairings, Goalies

Last seen, these were the line-us for the Boston Bruins and Dallas Stars:

Bruins Lines:

Brad Marchand - Patrice Bergeron - Brett Connolly

Matt Beleskey - David Krejci - David Pastrnak

Loui Eriksson - Ryan Spooner - Jimmy Hayes

Landon Ferraro - Joonas Kempainnen - Tyler Randell

The Bruins had been hot of late, and were cooled by a night of bad bounces and good Pekka Rinne on Thursday. Marchand comes into tonight's contest two short of thirty goals. While there've been ups and downs, the Bruins forward group has been good this season. If there's a "shot in the arm waiting to happen," I'd bet less on a trade and more on a Frank Vatrano recall after the deadline (please).

But for tonight, this is what we have so far. Possible updates pending.

Bruins D-Pairings:

Zdeno Chara - Zach Trotman

Dennis Seidenberg - Kevan Miller

Torey Krug - Adam McQuaid

If you're a Bruins fan, the sentence "oh, for (expletive)'s sake, that is our second pairing?" should feel a bit too familiar by now. You may remember different versions of this, such as the Seidenberg-McQuaid pairing that had a big hand in sucking the life out of the Bruins midseason performance last year.

And In Net:

I've gotta think is Tuukka Rask over Jonas Gustavsson, especially with the next game being Columbus.

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Stars Lines:

Jamie Benn - Tyler Seguin - Ales Hemsky

Jason Spezza - Cody Eakin - Patrick Sharp

Valeri Nichuskin - Mattias Janmark - Antoine Roussel

Colton Sceviour - Vernon Fiddler - Patrick Eaves

Take my best guesses beyond Voldemort's first line with a grain of salt, as we're not sure 100% how the Stars' pieces will fit together with Spezza back from IR. What we do know? This is a prolific unit, and the Bruins D will need to be in top form...I'm sorry, Tuukka Rask will need to be a brick wall...in order to shut them down.

Stars D-Pairings:

Alex Goligoski - John Klingberg

Johnny Oduya - Jason Demers

Patrik Nemeth - Jordie Benn

Contrary to the popular belief, this is actually a pretty solid group on defense. The old "you can play offense so that must mean you're not that good on the back end" thing sticks to this group a little too much, even if there's a few wobbly parts in terms of shot suppression. Klingberg, QBing the Stars Power Play, has 48 points total this season...including 10 goals of his own.

Stars Goalies:

Antti Niemi or Kari Lehtonen. Pick your streaky, around-average-or-a-little better, poison.

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There may be updates as we see more come out from the team accounts. Should be a fun game, see you all at 8!