PITTSBURGH – The Bruins continue the challenge of keeping both their goaltenders on point as they go with Jaroslav Halak on Friday night against the Pittsburgh Penguins at PPG Paints Arena. Tuukka Rask had started and won each of the two previous games while stopping 57 of 61 shots, and now it’s Halak's turn to keep up his performance, which still has him ranked fourth in the NHL in goals against average (2.30) and second in save percentage (.930).
The good news is that he’s been pretty good vs. the high-powered Penguins throughout his career, with a 9-6-2 record along with a 2.40 GAA and .924 save percentage.
“The goalie is Halak today,” confirmed Cassidy.
Otherwise, there won’t be too many changes with Sean Kuraly “expected to play” in tonight’s game after getting a minor procedure done on his nose Thursday rather than skating in the off-day practice with the team. He was manning the wing during the morning skate at Pittsburgh’s arena, but may give way to Noel Acciari in the middle as he dons a face cage to help protect his healing nose.
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“[Kuraly] looks fine. He just needs to adjust to that mask. But he should play. He’ll go through warm-up tonight, but we’re expecting him to [play],” said Cassidy of Kuraly, who had his nose busted in a brawl with towering Ottawa defenseman Ben Harpur last weekend. “I put Noel in the middle and Wagner on the wing. That could change because we’ve played them as a three-some before with Kuraly in the middle and Wagner on the wing. I just put Noel in the middle for a little bit because I trust him to play there while it frees Sean up to get in on the fore-check.”
Boston Bruins
Here are the projected Bruins line combos and D-pairings based on Friday’s morning skate in Pittsburgh:
Marchand-Krejci-Pastrnak
Nordstrom-Cave-Backes
Donato-JFK-Heinen
Kuraly-Acciari-Wagner
Krug-Carlo
Grzelcyk-McAvoy
Moore-Kampfer
Halak
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