Game Day Thread: Penguins @ Bruins

Tonight, a slightly less ridiculously critically injured Bruins team will face the Pittsburgh Penguins at home in the TD Garden.

Last Bruins game, they played the Detroit Red Wings, while having several defensemen out due to injury and missing Patrice Bergeron. While scoring the first goal, the Red Wings managed to do what they often do – tie it up and play for OT, where the Bruins could not use the Marchand-Bergy-Krug trio and lost.

Today is Black Friday, and the Bruins have been playing on Black Friday almost every year since 1990. No doubt Jack Edwards will have something to say about this, possibly griping that other teams now play on the day after Thanksgiving in an attempt to steal the Bruins’ thunder. We’re still getting our hockey – it’s all good.

Let’s do some lines.
The Bruins have called up P-Bruin forward Colby Cavé.
This morning, rookie Jakub Forsbacka-Karlsson was centering the Marchand-Pastrnak line and will do so tonight.

“Today we’re gonna move him up…his response was very good when we moved him up in Detroit, played harder – literally broke two or three teeth but kept on playing.” – Bruce Cassidy

Fluto Shinzawa reports that Anders Bjork and Steve Kampfer will be healthy scratches tonight, being necessary to handle nacho duty on the 9th floor.

And concussion-brothers Charlie McAvoy and Urho Vaakanainen were still red-shirted, and will not play. John Moore, sidelined since last Wednesday after the Colorado game, was skating, and is expected to return.

Bruins Forward Lines
Brad Marchand	#23 Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson	David Pastrnak
Danton Heinen	David Krejci	Jake DeBrusk
Joakim Nordstrom	Colby Cave, man	Noel Acciari
Chris Wagner	Sean Kuraly	David Backes
Bruins Defensive pairs
Matt Grzelcyk	Kevan Miller
Torey Krug	John Moore
#79 Jeremy Lauzon	#75 Connor Clifton
Bruins Goaltending
#41 Jaroslav Halak	(#40 Tuukka Rask)

Tonight’s opponent is the Pittsburgh Penguins. They are running at a record of 8-8-4 and just yesterday placed #1 goaltender Matt Murray on Injured Reserve from a lower body injury exacerbated on Saturday. Backup Casey DeSmith played the next 2-1/2 games in his stead. The Pens called up Tristan Jarry last night and he is expected to play vs the Bruins. Center Derek Grant has missed practices and is a game-time decision. (Not sure if that means they might insert Daniel Sprong and slide Riley Sheahan to 4C?) (h/t Daily Faceoff and Penguins radio guy Josh Getzoff ):

Penguins Forwards
Jake Guentzel — Sidney Crosby — Patric Hornqvist
Tanner Pearson — Evgeni Malkin — Phil Kessel
Zach Aston-Reese — Derick Brassard — Dominik Simon
Bryan Rust — Derek Grant — Riley Sheahan

Penguins Defense
Brian Dumoulin — Kris Letang
Olli Maatta — Juuso Riikola
Jack Johnson — Jamie Oleksiak

Penguins Goaltending
Tristan Jarry
(Casey DeSmith)