Bruins lines vs. Carolina: Lauzon in, no other surprises

Assuming everyone else was healthy, Bruce Cassidy only really had to make one “in or out” decision in advance of tonight’s game: who would be the second defenseman on the third pairing?

He made that decision, saying this afternoon that Jeremy Lauzon would be back in the lineup tonight, edging out Connor Clifton.

While Tuukka Rask and David Pastrnak missed practice yesterday, both are ready to play tonight.

It’s a near certainty that this middle six will change at some point in the evening, but here’s what to expect up front:

Brad Marchand - Patrice Bergeron - David Pastrnak

Jake DeBrusk - David Krejci - Ondrej Kase

Nick Ritchie - Charlie Coyle - Anders Bjork

Joakim Nordstrom - Sean Kuraly - Chris Wagner

...and on defense:

Zdeno Chara - Charlie McAvoy

Torey Krug - Brandon Carlo

Matt Grzelcyk - Jeremy Lauzon

Rask will be in net.

On the other side, it appears the Hurricanes will be getting a boost to their defense corps tonight:

From the fine folks over at Canes Country, here’s how the opponent will line up:

Andrei Svechnikov - Sebastian Aho - Teuvo Teravainen

Nino Niederreiter - Vincent Trochek - Martin Necas

Warren Foegele - Jordan Staal - Justin Williams

Brock McGinn - Morgan Geekie - Jordan Martinook

Jacob Slavin - Dougie Hamilton

Brady Skjei - Joel Edmundson

Jake Gardiner/Haydn Fleury - Sami Vatanen

Petr Mrazek