Game Day Thread: Boston Bruins @ Florida Panthers

Tonight, in yet another marquee battle of the mighty Flortheast division, the Bruins travelled to the hockey mecca of Sunrise, Florida, where they will face the Florida Panthers.

The Panthers are last in the division with a record of 10-10-5 for a mediocre 25 standings points. They are suffering through a rash of injuries themselves including to Bobby Lu. They are 2-1-2 in their last 5 games, with both wins coming in overtime.
The Bruins most recently faced the Detroit Red Wings at home, but were unfortunately not victorious vs nobody’s dastardly rival.
However, the game turned decidedly chippy in the 2nd period, including a bit of a minor line brawl – let’s take a look at the penalties, shall we?
12:47 DET Dennis Cholowski: Slashing — 2 min

15:08 BOS Joakim Nordstrom: Fighting — 5 min
15:08 DET Luke Witkowski: Fighting — 5 min

17:15 DET Jimmy Howard: Roughing Acciari — 2 min
17:15 BOS Colby Cave: Slashing Jensen — 2 min
17:15 BOS Brad Marchand: Slashing Bertuzzi — 2 min
17:15 BOS Tuukka Rask: Goaltender leaving crease — 2 min

17:56 DET Tyler Bertuzzi: Unsportsmanlike conduct — 2 min

18:42 DET Mike Green: Hooking — 2 min

As you can see, Joakim Nordstrom didn’t like a hit laid by Luke Witkowski, and dropped the gloves in defense of a teammate. How did it turn out? Well let’s just say Shawn Thornton’s legacy is secure.
Two minutes later, Bertuzzi crosschecks Marchand, Marchy retaliates, Colby Cave wades in, and all the skaters start wrestling. Once the ref’s arm goes up to signal a penalty, Jimmy Howard rushes to the bench – presumably to allow a 6-on-5 during what could have been a delayed penalty – which required him to cross the red line. Tuukka apparently took this as a challenge and rushed up to challenge Howard to fisticuffs. But since they are both goaltenders, it required far too much time and effort to remove their gloves & blockers, and the officials were able to prevent the undoubtedly vicious melee which would have ensued.
The actual assigned penalties differed from what the NHL reports, but Donato and De La Rose did spend time in the box (presumably for their goalies) the Bruins did end up shorthanded. I’m going to have to reread my rulebook when I get home – last I looked, ‘leaving the crease’ was not a penalty unless the centerline is crossed.

Let’s do some lines.
The Bruins still have P-Bruin callups Colby Cavé, Connor Clifton and Jeremy Lauzon as well as recently returned Ryan Donato. Jakub Forsbacka-Karlsson, who missed the last two games was sent to Providence and has since been recalled. Colby Cave seems to still be ready to center the 63–88 pair. Donato spent a couple of shifts with the Krejci/DeBrusk line, and will reportedly be there tonight. Carlo made his return on Saturday, and Charlie McAvoy has stopped wearing the no-contact jersey at practice but is not expected to play. Torey Krug had a maintenance day yesterday did not travel with the team, but is now in Florida and will play tonight.

#NHLBruins updates per Bruce Cassidy:

Torey Krug “looks good to go”.

Jaroslav Halak will start.

— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) December 4, 2018

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

Tonight’s opponent are the Florida Floridians Panthers. Daily Faceoff is currently predicting Luongo in net, but he is coming off a knee injury and is unlikely to play. I expect to see Reimer or Hutch in net. Vince Trocheck is suffering through a broken ankle, and Malgin/McGinn/MacKenzie (but not McCann) are all out due to injury, which means you will have a fighting chance of identifying who the play-by-play guy is talking about on the first try. This means that rookie Bogdan Kiselevich slots into the defense and Juho Lammikko on offense as well as Frank Vatrano. (h/t Daily Faceoff):

Panthers Forwards
Jonathan Huberdeau — Aleksander Barkov — Mike Hoffman
Evgenii Dadonov — Jared McCann — Frank Vatrano
Dryden Hunt — Nick Bjugstad — Troy Brouwer
Michael Haley — Juho Lammikko — Colton Sceviour

Panthers Defense
Keith Yandle — Aaron Ekblad
Michael Matheson — Mark Pysyk
Bogdan Kiselevich — MacKenzie Weegar

Red Wings Goaltending
James Reimer
Michael Hutchinson