No Bergeron in B’ s lineup for Quebec City preseason opener

BRIGHTON, Mass – Patrice Bergeron is one of the favorite sons of Quebec City, but that wasn’t enough to get him into the lineup for the Bruins Monday night preseason opener vs. the Montreal Canadiens in Quebec City. The 32-year-old Bergeron is coming off sports hernia surgery as a potential reason behind starting him off a little slowly with game action during the preseason, but there are clearly no red flags with him as No. 37 hasn’t seen any limitations or limited reps through the first weekend of training camp.

Bergeron seemed to have an inkling he wasn’t playing in this one when he spoke with the media a couple of days ago, but was still happy that his fellow Quebecois would get another front row seat to NHL hockey this week.

“It’s my hometown and you only get to go there so often, so it would be nice,” said Bergeron on Saturday. “But at the same time I don’t know what’s in the plan. It’s to them I guess and we’ll see what happens. I’ll play whenever they give me the tap on the shoulder, and that’s it. I’m ready to go whenever. I’m just trying to get better in practice right now, and I’m just happy that my hometown gets a little bit of NHL hockey at least. Hopefully eventually they get it full time back there.”

As Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy alluded to on Sunday, it will be a very young lineup that travels to Quebec City on Monday night to play at the Videotron Centre, and will include NHL veterans Matt Beleskey, Ryan Spooner and Kevan Miller among others. Here are the line combos and D-pairings from Monday morning’s practice at Warrior Ice Arena prior to the team leaving for Boston’s first meeting with Claude Julien and the Habs since he was fired by the B’s last season:

Gabrielle-Nash-Acciari

Beleskey-Spooner-Bjork