TORONTO – The Bruins will most likely get back John Moore and Marcus Johansson for Game 4 on Wednesday night at Scotiabank Arena, and their top-6 will change as a result of the expected lineup changes.
Bruce Cassidy indicated during an optional morning skate on Wednesday morning that Moore would return, and that Johansson would also play provided that he had recovered sufficient energy after battling an illness that cost him a couple of games. Steve Kampfer would be the healthy scratch to make room for Moore’s playoff debut with the Bruins, and it would be Karson Kuhlman coming out of the B’s lineup to make room for the skilled Johansson.
It’s certainly much better than Tuesday’s off-day practice, when it looked like it David Backes was going to be the healthy scratch, which would have made little sense given how good the third line has been for the Bruins in the series vs. Toronto.
“We’ll look at Kuhlman (coming out of the lineup) if MoJo is ready to go,” said Cassidy. “He’s been under the weather, so he has to have his energy level in order to help us. Johnny [Moore] has been skating lots, so for him he’s got his legs and I don’t anticipate there being any issues.”
Kuhlman has one assist in three games while playing right wing on the David Krejci line during the playoff series against the Maple Leafs, but really hasn’t been much of a two-way presence for a line that’s been otherwise good this postseason. So it stands to reason that adding the skilled Johansson to that line could give them some additional offensive pop, and starts to open up some possibilities for Bruce Cassidy should he want to begin playing around with his line combinations.
Here are the projected Bruins line combinations and defense pairings vs. the Maple Leafs in Game 4 based on morning skate:
Boston Bruins
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Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak
DeBrusk-Krejci-Johansson
Heinen-Coyle-Backes
Nordstrom-Acciari-Wagner
Chara-McAvoy
Krug-Carlo
Grzelcyk-Moore
Rask
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