The Bruins’ lineup for Game 3 of their best-of-7 playoff series against the Hurricanes will be different than it was for Game 2.
Whether that lineup will include scoring leader David Pastrnak won’t be known until Saturday morning.
Pastrnak, who tied for the NHL lead with 48 regular-season goals among his 95 points, did not play in Game 2 on Thursday night, which the Hurricanes won, 3-2, to knot the series at 1-1. He was not among a group of players to [...]
The Bruins’ lineup for Game 3 of their best-of-7 playoff series against the Hurricanes will be different than it was for Game 2.
Whether that lineup will include scoring leader David Pastrnak won’t be known until Saturday morning.
Pastrnak, who tied for the NHL lead with 48 regular-season goals among his 95 points, did not play in Game 2 on Thursday night, which the Hurricanes won, 3-2, to knot the series at 1-1. He was not among a group of players to participate in an optional practice on Friday afternoon —- the Bruins’ only on-ice preparation for Game 3 on Saturday at noon.
Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy didn’t rule Pastrnak out, but stopped short of predicting his No. 1 right wing would play.
"I would say he could still possibly play tomorrow," Cassidy said, "but with a 12 o’clock game, there’s no real opportunity to test it in a morning skate, like with your typical 7 o’clock start. … We’ll make that evaluation in the morning."
Pastrnak has experienced a week of starts and stops. After playing just short of 20 minutes in last Sunday’s 2-1 loss to the Capitals in the Bruins’ round-robin tournament finale, he didn’t practice on Monday. He participate in an optional morning skate on Tuesday, and after that evening’s scheduled Game 1 was pushed to Wednesday morning, Pastrnak played his best game since the NHL revived a season interrupted in March by the COVID-19 pandemic: One goal, one assist in 24 minutes, 58 seconds worth of ice time.
Pastrnak, who seemed to be in some discomfort after setting up linemate Patrice Bergeron for Wednesday’s game-winning goal, didn’t skate on Thursday and Friday.
Elsewhere in the lineup, Cassidy said that although No. 1 goalie Tuukka Rask is coming off starts on consecutive days and didn’t skate on Friday, "we anticipate he’ll start Game 3." The coach didn’t seem overly influenced by Rask’s post-game comments on Thursday, when he said the atmosphere at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena, where games are being played without fans, "feels like an exhibition game," and that after such a long layoff, he’s "just trying to have fun and play the game" and "not stressing too much about results."
Cassidy did plan to react to the Bruins’ overall performance in Game 2, though. Regardless of whether Pastrnak plays, the coach said there’d be lineup changes.
"We’ve thought it through," the coach said. "We’ll be making some changes both at forward and (defense). Some of that is to get some energy in the lineup, and change the look of our forward group."