Game Day Thread: Arizona Coyotes @ Boston Bruins

This evening, we will get to see the Bruins play the Coyotes at home.

The Bruins have been playing well the last 3 games, notching a win vs each of Toronto and Ottawa. Both those teams were a bit chippy, with Ottawa’s Ben Harpur breaking Sean Kuraly’s nose in a completely unnecessary fight, in addition to all kinds of stupidity going on in the Toronto game. The Bruins got some nice scoring chances in Ottawa, who got a surprisingly good performance in net from hockey nomad Mike McKenna. That led to 2 point games from both Brad Marchand – who potted a power-play goal – and Torey Krug, who scored the overtime game-winner. Davids Pastrnak & Krejci would each log an assist on the evening.

Let’s do those lines.

Newly acquired LW Gemel Smith has been a nice addition to the lineup. Jake DeBrusk missed the last couple of games after getting his head knocked into the way of a teammate’s shot and is not in the lineup tonight. His status is being evaluated ‘day-to-day’, and the team is obviously hoping his situation does not require extended concussion protocols. Sean Kuraly looks like he will play in spite of getting a little ad-hoc cosmetic surgery during this weekend’s Ottawa game. Kevan Miller is on IR, Zdeno Chara and Patrice Bergeron have just barely begun skating since their injuries. Urho Vaakanainen was a bit further ahead, but is out with flu-like symptoms. The Bruin lineups should be the same as in their previous two games.

Bruins Forward Lines
Brad Marchand	David Krejci	David Pastrnak
Joakim Nordstrom	Colby Cave, man	David Backes
Ryan Donato	#23 Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson	Danton Heinen
#28 Gemel Smith	Sean Kuraly	Chris Wagner
Bruins Defensive pairs
Torey Krug	Brandon Carlo
Matt Grzelcyk	Charlie McAvoy
John Moore	Steven Kampfer
Bruins Goaltending
#40 Tuukka Rask	(#41 Jaroslav Halak)

Tonight’s opponent are the Arizona Coyotes.

They’ve got a typical Yotes spot in the standings at 7th in the Pacific and a record of 13-13-2. They’re suffering through some depth injuries, and more alarming, injuries in net. Primary goaltender Antti Raanta suffered a season-ending injury in November, and journeyman Darcy Kuemper also suffered a lower body injury, but is expected to return to net tonight. AHL callup Adin Hill performed admirably for them in 7 games so far. Winger Michael Grabner suffered an eye injury last week, and Conor Garland slipped onto the lineup on Saturday. The ‘yotes have played well lately, winning 4 of their last 6 games, but in spite of an impressive season GAA stat, they have given up a lot of goals in their recent losses. (h/t Daily Faceoff and Hockey Reference):

Coyotes Forwards
Lawson Crouse — Nick Schmaltz — Clayton Keller
Alex Galchenyuk — Derek Stepan — Christian Fischer
Richard Panik — Brad Richardson — Nick Cousins
Conor Garland — Mario Kempe — Josh Archibald

Coyotes Defense
Oliver Ekman-Larsson — Ilya Lyubushkin
Alex Goligoski — Niklas Hjalmarsson
Jordan Oesterle — Jakob Chychrun

Coyotes Goaltending
Darcy Kuemper
(Adin Hill)