McAvoy back in Bruins lineup tonight

TAMPA – The Bruins continue to get healthy exactly on schedule as the Black and Gold will welcome back rookie defenseman Charlie McAvoy roughly a month after spraining the MCL in his left knee and will get a little closer to their full lineup in a pivotal Tuesday night showdown against the Tampa Bay Lightning essentially for the top spot in the Atlantic Division.

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The McAvoy, 20, missed exactly one month and 15 games with the knee injury. The B’s had projected he would miss four weeks, so credit them for hitting this one right on the nose with the recovery timetable.

If the Bruins win in regulation against the Lightning at Amalie Arena, they would need just a single point in their final three games to clinch the division, the conference and home ice through the first three rounds of the playoffs. McAvoy said he's just excited to get back into the mix with four games remaining in the regular season and have a chance to be a positive factor in a game with plenty of late-season ramifications for Boston.

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“I feel really well and I’m excited to get back out there [against Tampa],” said McAvoy, who will be playing with a brace on his left knee. “As soon as I got hurt my goal was to get back before the playoffs, so I could sharpen up [my game], and take these games to do so. I’m excited to get started with that and these games at the end still matter a lot. I’m just going to do everything I can do to go back out there and pick up right where I left off, and give my team the best chance to win.

“When everything happened a month ago I was just trying to do everything I could to get back on the ice. Now tonight it just so happens that it’s a meaningful game. I really can’t wait to get out there.”

In other good news, Rick Nash was skating back in Boston on Tuesday, according to Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy, in another positive step toward ramping up the big power forward up ahead of next week’s playoffs. That's a far cry from the fears that Nash had played his last game for the Bruins with an upper-body injury. It certainly seems as if the Bruins will get him back at some point early in the postseason barring any setbacks.

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Here are the projected Bruins line combos and D-pairings vs. Tampa with ProvidenceThe call-up Colby Cave centering the fourth line in place of Tommy Wingels, who injured one of his hands with an un-penalized slash in the Sunday’ OT loss in Philly: