BUFFALOTuukka Rask was the first goaltender off the ice just steps ahead of Tim Thomas at the conclusion of morning skate at the First Niagara Center, meaning the Finnish understudy will get the start against the Buffalo Sabres.
Rask enters Wednesday nights game against the Sabres riding three straight losses for the first time since opening the season with three straight losses in October.
Rask is still 7-2-1 in his last seven starts, however, and will be backstopping a Bruins team against a Sabres unit thats won three of their last four games while digging out of the Northeast Division basement. Buffalo is 11 points behind Ottawa for the final Eastern Conference playoff spot to begin the day, and has the classic backs against the wall mentality going for them.
You want to build some consistency, said Claude Julien. You dont want to play .500 hockey but you also have to respect the fact that every other team is battling to stay in the playoffsor battling to get into a playoff spot.Were in a part of the season where every team out of it still has a little bit of hope, and theyre going to push as hard as they can until the team pulls the plug. We expect team from here on in until the trade deadline, at the very least, to be very hard to play against.
Here is the rest of the projected lineup that should be the same as Sunday afternoon against the Washington Capitals:
Marchand-Bergeron-Seguin
Lucic-Kelly-Peverley
Pouliot-Krejci-Caron
Paille-Campbell-Thornton
Chara-Boychuk
Seidenberg-Corvo
Ference-McQuaid
Rask