The Bruins will finally be able to get the bitter taste of Wednesday nights embarrassing defeat out of their mouths with a Saturday matinee against the Nashville Predators. Tim Thomas gets the start for the Bs after getting pushed into duty against the Sabres in the 6-0 shellacking, and the red-hot Pekka Rinne gets the start for Nashville. Rinne is 2-0-0 with a 2.33 goals against average and a .921 save percentage in two career games against the Bruins.
Its the first ever match-up of Thomas against Rinne, who were the two Vezina Trophy finalists last season before the Bs goaltender picked up the trophy at the Las Vegas NHL Awards show. It's a marquee goalie match even if Claude Julien doesn't want to view it that way."I don't really look at it that way," said Julien. "I just look at it as two teams going up against each other. I really don't focus on the one position more than what we have to do here as a group. That's just the way I am."It excites people to watch, and that's not a bad view to take either. As a coach you can't just be looking at that area of the game."Here is the projected Bs lineup after warm-ups:
Marchand-Bergeron-Seguin
Lucic-Kelly-Peverley
Pouliot-Krejci-Caron
Paille-Campbell-Thornton
Chara-Boychuk
Corvo-Seidenberg
Ference-McQuaid
Thomas