Game Day Thread: Bruins at Blues

The Bruins are on the road again – this time they are in St. Louis, to play the Blues.


There is no word as to whether Lucille will be joining them.

The Bruins have played some decent hockey over the last few games against respectable opponents in spite of having a playoff-caliber team sitting in the stands most games. They Lost in heartbreaking fashion vs the Blue Jackets in overtime two nights ago, they beat the Lightning like a red-headed stepchild, and lost to the Panthers in a fierce game where they could not put a puck in the net. Still, they’ve only gotten half the points they could, and are about 1 point from clinching a playoff spot at 99 points – 5 points behind the Lightning, and 6 points ahead of the Maple Leafs with 2 games in hand against each, and 18 pionts ahead of any other team in the Flortheast. Charlie McAvoy is still out, Patrice Bergeron has started to skate again, and supposedly was going to travel with the team, but it does not appear that this happened. Rick Nash missed the last game with an upper body injury and did not travel. Zdeno Chara has been held out with an upper body injury and will not play tonight. Jake DeBrusk is out with a UBI and will not play. On the bright side, the new acquisitions and younger depth guys are getting valuable minutes in big games. This includes brand new signing Ryan Donato, who in his first game made a strong argument for remaining on the roster from now through the playoffs.

Anton Blidh has been sent back to the P-Bruins, and Jordan Szwarz & Paul Postma were brought back up for this road trip. Backes is traveling with the team, but will not play tonight. Adam McQuaid is rumored to be dealing with an undisclosed injury but apparently is practicing. Torey Krug missed practice on Tuesday, as did Ryan Donato, but in his case it was merely due to trying to complete his school-work, as he is still enrolled at Harvard.

I have no update on the rumor that Adam McQuaid treated Donato to a noogie-sandwich while boarding the plane to St.L.

The Blues are yet another team that is just outside the playoff structure. They are 3 points behind the #2 wildcard holder – Anaheim. They are struggling with some injuries of their own, having lost Jay Bouwmeester, Robby Fabbri & Scottie Upshall for the season, and more recently Carter Hutton and Vladimir Tarasenko. Their recent record has been up & down, with them currently riding a 2 game OT win streak vs a couple of bad teams. They’ve scored an impressive 4.2 goals per game recently Can the Blues pull off an upset win against a banged-up Bruins team?

Let’s hope not.

Anyway, let’s do some lines…

I don’t know the state of any new injuries, but the lines were strange last game so they may be fluid tonight.
Doby expected in net:

Bruins Forward Lines
Brad Marchand	R. Nash	David Pastrnak
Ryan Donato	David Krejci	Danton Heinen
Brian Gionta	Tommy Wingels	Jordan Szwarz
Tim Schaller	Sean Kuraly	Noel Acciari
Bruins Defensive pairs
Nick Holden	Brandon Carlo
Matt Grzelcyk	Kevan Miller
Paul Postma	Adam McQuaid
Bruins Goaltending
Anton Khudobin	(Tuukka Rask)

Confirmed: Tarasenko is out tonight. #stlblues

— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) March 21, 2018

:O:

Blues Forwards
Jaden Schwartz — Brayden Schenn — Alex Steen
Dmitrij Jaskin — Patrik Berglund — Tage Thompson
Vladimir Sobotka — Kyle Brodziak — Ivan Barbashev
Nikita Soshnikov — Oskar Sundqvist — Chris Thorburn

Blues Defense
Carl Gunnarsson — Alex Pietrangelo
Vince Dunn — Colton Parayko
Joel Edmundson — Robert Bortuzzo

Blues Goaltending
Jake Allen — Ville Husso

Officiating roster.
(H/T Scouting the Refs):

Referees
Dean Morton #36
Brad Watson #23
Linesmen
Scott Cherrey #50
Brandon Gawryletz #64