BOSTON — The Bruins further juggled their lines today during practice at TD Garden.
They had made some maneuvers in the third period of last night’s loss to Carolina, but those changes were thrown out of whack by a host of penalties.
Here’s what today’s lines looked like:
Lucic-Kelly-Seguin
Marchand-Bergeron-Horton
Caron-Krejci/Peverley-Pouliot
Paille-Campbell-Thornton
“I wish I could stand here and pretend I’m a genius. But you know what, I don’t know what I’m going to get. What I know is that what I was getting before wasn’t enough,” said head coach Claude Julien about the line changes. “So I just felt the need to make those changes. We’ve kind of put certain guys together for specific reasons. … It’s never a bad thing to mix guys up a little bit because sometimes it brings that burst of energy, it’s a new challenge and sometimes it [changes] things that maybe are stale.”
The Bruins skated with seven defenseman, as Adam McQuaid missed practice. Julien said he is day-to-day.
“I thought he was certainly as close as could be to coming back,: said Julien, who noted that no one can tell if McQuaid suffered a concussion or not so the team is treating this injury like it is one. “But there’s some issues where we pulled him back again. It’s a little bit longer than we predicted.”
Krejci said he’s 50/50 to return from his core injury and face Toronto Thursday night at TD Garden. Steven Kampfer was cleared for contact and could be a game-time decision depending on what the doctors say, according to Julien.
Joe Corvo said his neck was a little sore but otherwise he was fine after crashing into the boards because of a shove from Brett Sutter in the first period last night. Corvo returned for the second period and finished the game.
John, Hopefully, we see scoring from whatever lines the B’s skate tonight.
David-
No, it was a television reporter. I could care less about PK these days.
MK
Once DK is back –
Looch – Bergy – Marchand
Seguin – DK – Horton
Pouliot – Kelly – Peverley
Soup
Please!
MattK,
with reference to your NHL.com article (http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=596734), were you the reporter that Julein whammied?
Cormac- Interesting. I like those combos offensively, except the Seguin line would be a turnover machine, which could lead to issues.
Interesting B’s line combinations in today’s Herald under the article “Core of the issue: David Krejci remains Iffy”.
It asserted the below lines are what we’ll see tonight and going forward, until Krejci returns.
Bergeron centering Marchand and Caron
Kelly centering Peverley and Lucic
Seguin centering Horton and Pouliot
Banzai- or put the puck just far enough away from him that he loses it.
PCL – Pouliot may have a little more finish in him if he could skate a shift without falling down.
PCL,
It’s pretty hard to keep Kessel down when he’s hot. Fortunately, he’s as streaky as they come.
Something’s gotta change. I don’t know if these lines will do it, but there are a few forwards that need to wake up. That fourth line has been getting passes by everyone here, but they certainly haven’t been playing very well in their own end, IMO.
I think we’ll see a different Lucic tonight then we’ve seen so far this season. More grit and bang.
Yeah, Pouliot’s been getting chances from hard work, but kid’s got a lot more Swedish in him then finish, that’s for sure.
Tonight should be a good game. B’s should be getting the “Monster” for his first start of the season, as Reimer played last night. Jets took ‘em to a shootout, so they might be a bit sluggish.
I hate to say it, but Kessel looked pretty good last night, and has so far this season. That play and pass he made on Lupol’s first last night was a beaut. With that said, I hope Johnny Manchuk, Lucic, or anyone in Black & Gold for that matter, puts their shoulder right through Dollar Phil’s chest tonight.
Pouliot is working hard, he deserves ice time and confidence, especially this time of year, upside could be huge and not much downside.
Lucic seems to be struggling, mixing it up might help him and Horty.
David
I agree that Peverly has played well. If I was giving out A’s on performance, Peverly, Thomas and Bergeron would be my only 3. Seguin and Boychuk would be close as well, and probably should compete for most improved. In regards to Peverly, sometimes in the past CJ has played Bergeron with players that aren’t playing well, and I think he’s trying to do that with Peverly as well. Hopefully something starts to click soon!
Joe,
The reason for my Seguin remark is that it doesn’t appear that Krejci will be ready for tomorrow night, unless CJ isn’t letting anybody know.
Considering Peverly has the team lead in goals, he’s getting the short end of the stick. Hopefully, he can get the 3rd line going, and Horton gets the wakeup call. It makes sense to leave Seguin at wing if Krecji is the center.
My guess is that these line combos were just for practice today and that Kelly drops back to 3rd line when Krejci is healthy….The big change that I see is that Seguin is basically now the #1 RW, as Horton is bumped to #2 RW. 3rd line is/will be Kelly, Peverly and either Caron or Pouliot.
Call me biased or crazy but shouldn’t Seguin be practicing at center on a line?
No offense against Kelly, as a unit the 3d line, since the start of the season, have ZERO points!
Kelly’s goal was a SHG against the Hawks and Seguin’s 1-4-5 came playing with other lines.
Hopefully Kampfer or McQuaid can get back soon, because I agree with you, Bartkowski was really bad, especially behind his own net. (Did he ever get out from back there?)
Should we excpect the Bruins to call up a D-man from Providence? Bartowski was painful to watch last night.