No surprise here, but Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy told the media in Detroit that David Pastrnak and Trent Frederic are both out for Tuesday night's game against the Red Wings.
Both players suffered injuries during Monday's win over the Blue Jackets. Frederic exited in the second period with an upper-body injury after a hard, clean hit from Jake Christiansen, while Pastrnak left early in the third after getting tangled up with Vladislav Gavrikov and falling awkwardly. Neither returned to the game.
Cassidy said on Tuesday that he doesn't think Pastrnak's injury is long-term and that he's considered "day-to-day" for now.
With two top-nine forwards out, Cassidy is forced to do some shaking up, and he acknowledged that he could move pieces around during the game as well. The top line of Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and Jake DeBrusk is the only one that will remain unchanged.
Tomas Nosek is set to move up from fourth-line center to Pastrnak's spot as second-line right wing, as Cassidy will keep Craig Smith with Charlie Coyle on the third line. Nick Foligno slides up a line to take Frederic's spot on that line.
On the fourth line, Cassidy plans to go with the trio that has been practicing together as the de facto fifth line: Anton Blidh, Jack Studnicka and Marc McLaughlin. That means Curtis Lazar will be a healthy scratch. This will be the second game for McLaughlin, the Billerica native who scored his first career goal in his NHL debut against the Devils on Thursday.
On the back end, Derek Forbort will go back in for Josh Brown, with Mike Reilly moving over to the right side on the third pairing. The Bruins started Saturday's game against Columbus with that same Forbort-Reilly pair, but it lasted just half the game before the pairs got shuffled. Cassidy had said he would go back to it at some point because they do want to see how Reilly does on his off side.
Here is how the Bruins are expected to line up Tuesday. Jeremy Swayman starts in net.
Brad Marchand - Patrice Bergeron - Jake DeBrusk
Taylor Hall - Erik Haula - Tomas Nosek
Nick Foligno - Charlie Coyle - Craig Smith
Anton Blidh - Jack Studnicka - Marc McLaughlin
Hampus Lindholm - Charlie McAvoy
Matt Grzelcyk - Brandon Carlo
Derek Forbort - Mike Reilly
Jeremy Swayman
Related
