Game Day Thread: Game 1 – Bruins @ Caps

The playoffs are here. Bruins are visiting the Washington Capitals for the first two games of this round.
See it on NBC, CBC, TVAS or SportsNet. NBC is running it behind the Preakness, so count on them to screw that up, and for it to run late, and the game to be delayed or started on some other random NBC-Universal-Comcast channel like USA Network then transferred randomly to NBC.
Not that I’m jaded by previous instances of poor planning by NBC around horse racing or anything.

Finally, the playoffs are here.

The goal.
The jacket.
The shift.

It’s time to write the next great story. pic.twitter.com/qA8Mw439HJ

— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) May 15, 2021

The Bruins face the Capitals in the playoffs for the first time since 2012.
The Caps are a tough team, they play physical and can put up points in a game, though their goaltending is unspectacular. The Bruins have been good at limiting their opponent’s chances, and have strong goaltending and one of the best penalty kills in the league. They also have the best record post trade deadline, in spite of being in a very tightly contested division.

What will be the lines today?

The Injury Report: Ondrej Kaše is out today. Charlie Coyle should be back.

With Charlie Coyle back, and Ondrej Kaše out, Charlie Coyle will play on the right wing of Seanb Kuraly, bumping Chris Wagner to Curtis Lazar’s right wing with Jake DeBrusk on the left side. Karson Kuhlman and Trent Frederic gets the day off.

Matt Grzelcyk was paired with Charlie McAvoy at Thursday’s practice. With Reilly opposite Carlo.

Tuukka Rask is in net, Jeremy Swayman will be his backup.

Bruins Forward Lines
Brad Marchand	Patrice Bergeron	David Pastrnak
#71 Taylor Hall	David Krejci	Craig Smith
Nick Ritchie	Sean Kuraly	Charlie Coyle
Jake DeBrusk	#6 Curtis Lazar	Chris Wagner
Bruins Defensive pairs
Matt Grzelcyk	Charlie McAvoy
#6 Mike Reilly	Brandon Carlo
Jeremy Lauzon	Kevan Miller
Bruins Goaltending
#40 Tuukka Rask	(#1 Jeremy Swayman)

Tonight’s opponents are the Washington Capitals. The Caps picked up Anthony Mantha and Michael Raffl at the trade deadline.
Coach Peter Laviolette is being a dipshit by not naming his starter in goal. It doesn’t matter. (Psst – Vitek Vanecek will be in net). T.J. Oshie (lower-body) is a game-time decision.
Forward Evgeny Kuznetsov and goaltender Ilya Samsonov are in COVID protocol.
(h/t Daily Faceoff and the Washington Post’s Samantha Pell @SamanthaJPell):

Capitals Forwards
#8 Alex Ovechkin — #19 Nicklas Backstrom — #39 Anthony Mantha
#73 Conor Sheary — #20 Lars Eller — #17 Michael Raffl
#10 Daniel Sprong — #77 T.J. Oshie — #43 Tom Wilson
#62 Carl Hagelin — #26 Nic Dowd — #21 Garnet Hathaway

Capitals Defense
#9 Dmitri Orlov — #74 John Carlson
#4 Brenden Dillon — #2 Justin Schultz
#33 Zdeno Chara — #3 Nick Jensen

Capitals Goaltending
#41 Vitek Vanecek
(#31 Craig Anderson)

Officiating
Referees: #21 TJ Luxmore — #19 Gord Dwyer
Linesmen: ##76 Michel Cormier — #81 Ryan Daisy
(as usual, h/t Scouting the Refs)