BRIGHTON -- The Bruins dropped a rough one to the Philadelphia Flyers on Wednesday night, blowing a two-goal lead, so there'll be some changes headed into Thursday night’s game against the St. Louis Blues.
David Backes will be back in the lineup on the fourth line after being a healthy scratch Wednesday, and John Moore will replace Matt Grzelcyk after sitting as a healthy scratch for the last few games.
Coach Bruce Cassidy said it was more about utilizing players with fresh legs in a midseason, two-games-in-two-nights situation than it was about performance issues with either Grzelcyk or Noel Acciari, whose spot is being taken by Backes.
"[Part] of the thinking is that it’s a back-to-back," said Cassidy. "You get a guy with some fresh legs in there . . . "
Certainly there’s also the issue of the Bruins sitting almost $10 million in salary in Backes and Moore, and what that signals about the free-agent signings of both players. For now it’s merely a numbers game, with Cassidy trying to get everyone playing time with the Bruins at near full health, but a consistent healthy-scratch status for either of those two high-salaried players would be problematic.
Cassidy said there's been no problem with either veteran.
“[Backes] handled it very well," said Cassidy, "very professional as he’s always been. He’s certainly not 100 percent in agreement with the decision, but we ask our players when it happens to make sure any [hard] feelings are left outside the locker room. John Moore has been terrific with that (too).
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“Hopefully [Backes] has a good night for us tonight and we see what happens going forward . . . (and) we don’t want Moore sitting for too long. He’s played well too. It’s a good problem to have with good players sitting and that’s where we’re going with it.”
With the Bruins looking for a better effort against the Blues, here are the projected line combos and D-pairings vs. St. Louis with Tuukka Rask starting and the B’s staying off the ice on Thursday morning at Warrior Ice Arena:
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Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak
DeBrusk-Krejci-Cehlarik
Donato-JFK-Heinen
Wagner-Kuraly-Backes
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Chara-McAvoy
Moore-Miller
Krug-Carlo
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Rask
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