BOSTON – The Bruins jumped back on the ice Tuesday morning after an off-day on Monday, and now get ready for another game with heavy playoff implications as they get ready to host the Florida Panthers at TD Garden. The B’s went through a full morning skate with Daniel Paille and Brett Connolly as the extra forwards, and Tuukka Rask as the first goalie off the ice expected to get the start after a 30-save performance on Sunday in Carolina.
The Bruins now hold a three-point lead on the Ottawa Senators, and could deal a crushing blow to a Panthers team that’s four points behind them in the standings with a regulation victory on home ice. What’s important for the Bruins is to not get carried away with another little cushion they’ve built up for themselves in the standings.
“I don’t think you should be breathing easy and I don’t think anybody in there has been breathing easy," Claude Julien said. "I think it’s just one of those things where we know where we’re at. We know what we have to do here we just have to stay with the task at hand here, and keep focusing on what we need to do.
“Dave [Krejci] said it, and we’re not denying that either: ‘It’s almost like a game seven tonight.’ A lot of stuff can happen one way or another here depending on the outcome.”
Here are the line combos and D-pairings based on morning skate, with the same group set to go for three in a row on Tuesday as the one that pulled out Sunday night’s overtime win against the Carolina Hurricanes:
Marchand-Bergeron-Krejci
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Lucic-Spooner-Pastrnak
Eriksson-Soderberg-Smith
Kelly-Campbell-Talbot
Chara-McQuaid
Krug-Seidenberg
Bartkowski-Trotman
Rask