Berkshire Bank Faceoff: Projected Lines, Pairings For Bruins-Red Wings

The Boston Bruins could unveil some different lines in Thursday night’s road game against the Detroit Red Wings.

Brett Connolly, whom the B’s acquired at the trade deadline last month, could make his debut for the team. Head coach Claude Julien told reporters “we’ll see” Thursday morning when asked if Connolly would play against Detroit. The 22-year-old right winger said after Wednesday’s practice that he felt ready to go.

David Krejci was taken off the Patrice Bergeron line during Wednesday’s practice and played center between Carl Soderberg and Loui Eriksson. It’s unknown if Krejci still will be in that spot when the puck drops.

After dominating the month of March, the Milan Lucic-Ryan Spooner-David Pastrnak is expected to remain intact. These players led the B’s in scoring in March.

The Red Wings will be without several key players, most notably superstar two-way forward Pavel Datsyuk.

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Tuukka Rask (Boston) versus Petr Mrazek (Detroit) is the expected goaltender matchup.

Here are the projected lineups for both teams:

BOSTON BRUINS (39-25-13, fourth in Atlantic)
Brad Marchand-Patrice Bergeron-Reilly Smith
Carl Soderberg-David Krejci-Loui Eriksson
Milan Lucic-Ryan Spooner-David Pastrnak
Max Talbot-Chris Kelly-Brett Connolly

Zdeno Chara-Zach Trotman
Torey Krug-Dennis Seidenberg
Matt Bartkowski-Adam McQuaid

Tuukka Rask

DETROIT RED WINGS (40-23-13, third in Atlantic)
Justin Abdelkader-Henrik Zetterberg-Gustav Nyquist
Darren Helm-Riley Sheahan-Tomas Tatar
Dan Cleary-Stephen Weiss-Teemu Pulkkinen
Drew Miller-Luke Glendening-Tomas Jurco

Niklas Kronwall-Jonathan Ericsson
Dan DeKeyser-Kyle Quincey
Brendan Smith-Marek Zidlicky

Petr Mrazek